Erik Nitsche: Graphic Designer

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Erik Nitsche is a graphic designer whose successful career spanned everything from corporate identity to packaging design. He left a mark during his sixty year career as a designer and had a distinct style when it came to design. He said himself that he “was a Swiss in the graphic arts.” He walked into well-known places and got work immediately (Heller.) Nitsche held this heritage responsible for getting him where he was. Even though he may not be as well known as other designers, like Saul Bass and Paul Rand, he is said to be their equal (Heller.) Overall, Nitsche was an art director, graphic design, photographer, package designer, and illustrator who was known for his posters, advertisements, logos, magazine covers, book designs, and more. …show more content…

This magazine was filled with charts and graphs covering information like aerodynamics and even hydraulic systems (Iconofgraphics.) With this opportunity, he had complete control over the format and illustrations in the magazine. His passion for precision made this something Nitsche was very good at and enjoyed. Many people would cringe at the idea of designing charts about aerodynamics, but Nitsche loved it. He was tired of the fashion industry and designing meaningful data was the perfect task for him. Even though he loved this opportunity, Nitsche left Air Tech and Air News a few years later. Nitsche’s success continued and he became the Art Director for many more companies. In 1947, he became art director at Dorland International, which was also located in New York. Then in 1948, only one year later, he was art director of Mademoiselle magazine. While working for the Mademoiselle magazine he loved printing and the entire process of it. He ended up using the split fountain, a printing technique, in some of the issues. The technique was actually designed to create a rainbow effect by using two colors. One color was at the top of the ink pan, while the other was at the bottom. As the cylinders rotated the colors blended together resulting in mixed gradations (Heller.) Nitsche introduced this printing technique to the company, but it could easily damage the machinery in …show more content…

At ENI he had more success while creating things like pictorial history books and more. His pictorial books were said to be created so the pictures drove the text (Heller.) He created volumes like the histories of transportation, aviation, photography, astronomy, and chemistry. He also created a twenty volume set that helped visualize the history of music. After this experience, Nitsche had even more traveling to do. In the 1970’s, he left Switzerland and went back to Connecticut to work on children's books such as The Upside Down Box, Mr. Peewinkle’s Mailbox, among others. Then in the early 1980’s he went to Munich, Germany again where he designed record sleeves for clients and then postage stamps for the West German Ministry of Communications

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