Peter Seitz: Designing a Life - Softcover

Peter Seitz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0980089301 ISBN 13: 9780980089301

Publisher: Minneapolis College of Art & Design, 2007

Synopsis

Peter Seitz (1931-Present) is a legendary graphic designer, author, teacher and business owner who served as the first Design Director at The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN) and established the graphic design curriculum at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Peter Seitz: Designing A Life is a chronicle of his life and work. Seitz began his design studies at the Ulm School of Design in Germany, studying with celebrated graphic designers Tomás Moldonado, Max Bill, and Otl Aicher. He received a Master s of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design and Photography from Yale University in 1961, studying with Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson and Herbert Matter. Upon moving to Minneapolis in 1964, Seitz became the first Director of Design at the Walker Art Center, where he created pioneering exhibitions as well as the groundbreaking journal Design Quarterly. Seitz went on to organize the Minnesota Chapter of AIGA, Siggraph, and the country's first interdisciplinary design firm, InterDesign. From business, Seitz moved into education, serving as Chair of Design at Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 1971 until 1998. Seitz followed the road less traveled in all aspects of his career, starting things rather than joining them. At each step, Seitz created communities. Whether conceptualizing the audiences of his Walker years, the innovative businesses of his years as a designer, or the networking potential of digital technology, Seitz understood community as a necessary ingredient to creative lives. Peter Seitz: Designing A Life rests on Seitz's belief that discourse is the heart of creativity and that community is the heart of discourse. -Vince Leo

About this title

About the Author

Peter Seitz was a design pioneer. A graduate of both the HfG Ulm and Yale, he arrived in the Twin Cities to establish a tradition of modern design at the Walker Art Center before founding a succession of path-breaking design studios. He brought technology and modernist rigor to the curriculum at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he taught for 30 years.

Review

Award: American Institute of Graphic Arts Fifty Best Books 2008 --American Institute of Graphic Arts

More than a slight exhibition catalogue or commemorative souvenir, this invaluable document examines the work of a significant mid-century Modernist and design teacher, who studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm and Yale University and, in turn, imported Modernism to the American Mid-West. By virtue of his geographical location Seitz may not have received the same canonical attention as those on East and West coasts, but his influence as an interpreter of mid-century European Modernist and Swiss practice is not merely noteworthy but integral to the history of the field. His identity and design work for the Walker Art Center, including the famous Design Quarterly, as well as dozens of regional businesses and industries deserve astute attention and analysis. Although Seitz has been acknowledged in small ways outside his bailiwick, this is the first critical mass of accomplishment . . . --Steven Heller, Eye Review

Edition details

• Publisher: Minneapolis College of Art & Design
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0980089301
• ISBN 13: 9780980089301
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 181
• Editor: Andrew Blauvelt, Pamela Johnson