Six issues of A–D [formerly PM] complete with original covers and all inserts bound into a single decorated cloth volume by the craftsmen at the Composing Room in an edition of 400 copies. Blue cloth boards with leather gilt spine labels. Printed Publishers Index for Volume 7 bound in. Blue spine cloth slightly lightened, and all four tips nudged. Textblock lightly dust spotted. Steinweiss edition with tape reinforcements to decorated boards, otherwise all six bound issues in fine condition in a nearly fine Publishers binding.
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: A-D [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., Volume 7, No. 1: October-November 1940. Original edition. Slim 12mo. 4-color similetone perfect bound and sewn wrappers. 76 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Multiple paper stocks. Original cover design by noted WPA artist Philip Reisman [who is also the Featured Artist].
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: A-D [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., Volume 7, No. 2: December 1940 – January 1941. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Thick printed perfect bound and sewn 4-color Photo offset wrappers. 40 [xx] pp. Original wraparound cover design by featured artist Lucille Corcos.
[Paul Rand] Robert L. Leslie, and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: A-D [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., Volume 7, No. 3: February/March 1941. First edition. Slim 12mo. Stitched and perfect-bound two-color wrappers. 74 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Wraparound cover design by Paul Rand.
[George Giusti] Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: A-D [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., Volume 7, No. 4: April - May 1941. Original edition. Slim 12mo. 4-color Photo offset perfect bound and sewn wrappers. 76 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Multiple paper stocks. Original cover design by George Giusti.
[Alex Steinweiss] Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: A-D [AN INTIMATE JOURNAL FOR ART DIRECTORS, PRODUCTION MANAGERS, AND THEIR ASSOCIATES]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., June-July 1941 [Volume 7, No. 5]. Original edition. Spiral-bound paper-covered boards printed in 4-color letterpress. Screen-printed acetate frontis. 76 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisements. Multiple paper stocks. Original Letterpress cover designed by Alex Steinweiss.
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: A-D [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. NYC: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., August-September 1941 [Volume 7, No. 6]. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Stitched and perfect-bound printed wrappers. 56 pp. Illustrated articles. The cover is an original 4-color offset design by Matthew Leibowitz.
[6] 5.5 x 7.75 volumes with 426 pages of articles and trade advertisements. Issue highlights include:
Listing of Advertisements: Reliance Reproduction Co., Zeese - Wilkinson Co., Inc., The Composing Room, Wilbar Photo Engraving, Strathmore Paper Co., Wolf Envelope Co., Crafton Co., Ludlow Typograph Co., Flower Electrotypes, Arrow Engraving Co., Supreme Printing Service, Reliance Reproduction Co., Pioneer Moss, Walker Rackliff, Fuchs and Lang Mfg. Co., Spiral, United Looseleaf Corp., Lumarith Protectoid, Longman’s, Green and Co., The Haddon Craftsman, etc.
In 1939, at the age of 23, Alex Steinweiss revolutionized the way records were packaged and marketed. As the first art director for the recently formed Columbia Records, Steinweiss saw a creative opportunity in the company's packaging for its 78 rpm shellac records. The plain cardboard covers traditionally displayed only the title of the work and the artist. "They were so drab, so unattractive," says Steinweiss, "I convinced the executives to let me design a few." For what he saw as 12-inch by 12-inch canvasses inspired by French and German poster styles, he envisioned original works of art to project the beauty of the music inside. In 1947, for the first LP, Steinweiss invented a paperboard jacket, which has become the standard for the industry for nearly 50 years.
Alex Steinweiss was born in 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. His father loved music and instilled the passion in him. In 1930, Steinweiss entered Abraham Lincoln High School. His first artistic endeavors resulted in beautifully articulated marionettes. These brought him to the attention of the art department chair, Leon Friend, co-author of Graphic Design (1936), the first comprehensive American book on the subject.
Matthew Leibowitz (1918 – 1974) attended evening classes at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art while he worked in a design studio during the day. He was Art Director of the Philadelphia Advertising Agency before setting up as a freelance advertising artist. From 1942 he art directed and consulted for several firms including IBM, RCA Victor, Sharp and Dohme, Spalding, Container Corporation of America, General Electric, N. W. Ayer and Son, The International Red Cross and others. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Denver Art Museum and the Musee National d'Art Museum, Paris. Between 1941 and 1959 he received 163 gold medals and other awards.
If the word legend has any meaning in the graphic arts and if the term legendary can be applied with accuracy to the career of any designer, it can certainly be applied to Paul Rand (1914-1996). By 1947, the legend was already firmly in place. By then Paul had completed his first career as a designer of media promotion at Esquire-Coronetãand as an outstanding cover designer for Apparel Arts and Directions. He was well along on a second career as an advertising designer at the William Weintraub agency which he had joined as art director at its founding. Thoughts on Design (with reproductions of almost one hundred of his designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design) had just published ãan event that cemented his international reputation and identified him as a designer of influence from Zurich to Tokyo.
A chronology of Rand's design experience has paralleled the development of the modern design movement. Paul Rand's first career in media promotion and cover design ran from 1937 to 1941, his second career in advertising design ran from 1941 to 1954, and his third career in corporate identification began in 1954. Paralleling these three careers there has been a consuming interest in design education and Paul Rand’s fourth career as an educator started at Cooper Union in 1942. He taught at Pratt Institute in 1946 and in 1956 he accepted a post at Yale University's graduate school of design where he held the title of Professor of Graphic Design.
In 1937 Rand launched his first career at Esquire. Although he was only occasionally involved in the editorial layout of that magazine, he designed material on its behalf and turned out a spectacular series of covers for Apparel Arts, a quarterly published in conjunction with Esquire. In spite of a schedule that paid no heed to regular working hours or minimum wage scales, he managed in these crucial years to find time to design an impressive array of covers for other magazines, particularly Directions. From 1938 on his work was a regular feature of the exhibitions of the Art Directors Club.
Most contemporary designers are aware of Paul Rand's successful and compelling contributions to advertising design. What is not well known is the significant role he played in setting the pattern for future approaches to the advertising concept. Rand was probably the first of a long and distinguished line of art directors to work with and appreciate the unique talent of William Bernbach. Rand described his first meeting with Bernbach as "akin to Columbus discovering America,≤ and went on to say, ≥This was my first encounter with a copywriter who understood visual ideas and who didn't come in with a yellow copy pad and a preconceived notion of what the layout should look like.≤
Rand spent fourteen years in advertising where he demonstrated the importance of the art director in advertising and helped break the isolation that once surrounded the art department. The final thought from Thoughts on Design is worth repeating: Even if it is true that commonplace advertising and exhibitions of bad taste are indicative of the mental capacity of the man in the street, the opposing argument is equally valid. Bromidic advertising catering to that bad taste merely perpetuates that mediocrity and denies him one of the most easily accessible means of aesthetic development.≤
In 1954 when Paul Rand decided Madison Avenue was no longer a two-way street and he resigned from the Weintraub agency, he was cited as one of the ten best art directors by the Museum of Modern Art. The rest is design history.
A-D magazine was the leading voice of the U. S. Graphic Arts Industry from its inception in 1934 (originally titled PM) to its end in 1942. As a publication produced by and for professionals, it spotlighted cutting-edge production technology, such as acetate inserts, 4-color letterpress printing, custom binding and the highest possible quality reproduction techniques (from engraving to plates). PM and A-D also championed the Modern movement by showcasing work from the vanguard of the European Avant-Garde well before this type of work was known to a wide audience.
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