fJenna has 4 post(s)

About Ladislav Sutnar
In 1897, Ladislav Sutnar was born in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. Mr. Sutnar was one of the first designers to take practice in the art of information design. Information design is the process of gathering large amounts of data and putting it into a visual form in a simple way for people to view clearly. Two of the main characteristics of his work were that he focused on using a limited color palette and he used a lot of typography. In his work, he often used a lot of punctuation symbols to represent certain ideas. One of the things that he has done that has had a significant impact on our everyday life, is that he decided to put parenthesis around the area code in telephone books. Sutnar moved to New York to do some work, but while he was staying in the city, the Nazi’s took over his home country, Czechoslovakia. That’s when he decided to stay in New York and start a new life living in America. He began teaching at the State School of Graphic Arts in Prague. After that, he spent almost 20 years working at Sweet’s catalog services and that’s where he spent most of his time creating information graphics. He also went on to create trend-setting designs in glassware, porcelain, flatware and other products. Although english was not his first language, his knowledge of information graphics was so strong that he was able to send a message to his audience that was mostly American.

From a personal standpoint, I think it’s extremely interesting that he was the one to decide to put parenthesis around the area code in phonebooks. I never knew that there was a person to make the decision to do so, I just thought that they were there from the beginning. I looked at a lot of his work and even though he specialized in information graphics, he did a few other kinds of design too.

Highlights about Ladislav Sutnar:

• He decided to put parenthesis around the area code of a phone number.
• He was one of the first designers to specialize in information graphics.
• His information graphics work went on to be the “architecture and design of the web”.

Cover for De Stilj Magazine, Ladislav Sutnar, 1931.

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• Cover for De Stilj Magazine, Ladislav Sutnar, 1931.
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• Venus in Central Park, Ladislav Sutnar
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• Venus / Forever Me, Ladislav Sutnar, 1967
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• Design for Die Casting, Ladislav Sutnar, 1945
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• Scovill Condenser Tubes, Ladislav Sutnar, 1943.
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• Some of Ladislav Sutnar’s information design work.
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Sources:
Design Is History: Ladislav Sutnar
ADC Hall of Fame: Ladislav Sutnar
Ladislav Sutnar, Web Design before the Internet