Birth: 1911, Topeka, Kansas
Death: 1995 (at age 84)

Bradbury Thompson was a distinguished pioneer of graphic design in America. He is known for his art direction and design of over three dozen magazines, including Mademoiselle, Art News, Smithsonian, and Westvaco Inspirations, where his formal typographic play and revelry in the print process is most evident.

Thompson was born in 1911 in Topeka, Kansas, and attended Washburn College, studying economics. He was the descendent of an important Presbyterian missionary, and this heritage was integral to his lifelong interest in making the spoken word visual. In this regard, his magnum opus was the Washburn College Bible, a project begun in 1969 and finished a decade later. Thompson himself broke the biblical text into phrases as if spoken, a radical invention, and set it in a specially modified version of Jan Tschichold‘s Sabon Antiqua.J. Carter Brown served as art editor. Three original prints by Josef Albers were tipped in as frontpieces of each of the three volumes in the original limited edition.

In 1945 he created his monoalphabet, an exploration where the same 26 characters are used for upper and lower case. The experiment later grew into Alphabet 26. He designed countless postage stamps, corporate identities and trademarks.

Bradbury Thompson was a member of the faculty of Yale University for over thirty years, and was granted the highest honors by the National Society of Art Directors in 1950, the AIGA in 1975, and the Art Directors Hall of Fame in 1977. In 1986 he was awarded the TDC Medal, the award from the Type Directors Club presented to those “who have made significant contributions to the life, art, and craft of typography”.

He was a gracious gentleman who found time even in his last years to welcome students into his home for inspiration. His design approach emphasizes human value, human scale and functionalism.

In 1958, Bradbury received his first commission to design a postage stamp for the USPS, which lead to more kthan 90 designs throughout his career; more than any other designer in America. It cas his initiative to include a USA logo on every stamp to create unity within the program.

Learning Never Ends – A commemmorative stamp featuring a painting by Josef Albers

Americas Librarie’s – Designed in honor of America’s Libraries

Love

Bradbury started this project in 1969, and it would take him about a decade to complete, and it is considered to be the most thorough reassessment of the printed Bible format since Gutenberg.

The frontispiece of each volume includes an original screen print by Josef Albers, dated, titled, numbered and signed shortly before his death in 1976.

Communication Arts Feature
Alphabet 26
Washburn College Bible
Alphabet 26: excerpts
Dynamic Symmetry: Design Connections from Nature to our Built World andLearning from Mentors I Never Met: Bradbury Thompson

Inspirations for graphic design
The Art of Graphic Design
Washburn College Bible by Bradbury Thompson (Editor)
A history of type & modern angling: An homage to Bradbury Thompson by Thomas W Walker
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages: A history of the circus and typography ; an homage to Bradbury Thompson by Tim Legge
The art of the printed message: An homage to Bradbury Thompson by Christopher Hoot