Jacques Nathan Garamond

I only got to know the work of Jacques Nathan a bit better recently, when going through some of his early work featured in one of the Penrose Annuals….(featured image on left) which of course led me on a path of further discovery about this uniquely talented graphic designer.

Born in 1921 and dying only in 2001 Jacques is best known for his Graphic Design and Posters – but he was also a painter in his later life.

Many of his poster designs have become iconic, especially those for Air France, Telefunken and Mazda. The first image below is probably one of his best known, and if you type his name into google it will come up with dozens of variations of this iconic image:

Jacques Nathan - Design for Telefunken

The next few images of Garamond’s designs are for “Acier” a steel manufacturing magazine, courtesy of the lovely Michelle at Galleries Monmarte

Jacques Nathan Garamond - Cover for the Magazine 'Acier'

Jacques Nathan Garamond - Cover for the Magazine 'Acier'

Jacques Nathan Garamond - Cover for the Magazine 'Acier'

You can also find a reasonable representation of Garamond’s work on the Web including these sites:

The Museum Of Modern Art has some good examples of his early posters  from the 1930′s and 1940′s, and the Smithsonian has this lovely gouache design on their site:

Even on eBay you can find (reproductions of ) some of his work like this gorgeous Air France Poster below on this site:

Jacques Nathan Garamond - Air France Poster c1960

There is also an authoritative and excellent, concise biography on the site of an organistion Jacques Nathan Garamond helped found – the “Alliance Graphique Internationale” , which this quote and the final two superb images are from:

Born as Jacques Nathan, he ‘covered up’ his family name during WW2, using it as a middle name and adding Garamond as his surname. This change was inspired by the threatening actions of the German occupiers. Jacques Garamond, Jean Colin, Jean Picart Le Doux from France and the Swiss Fritz Bühler and Donald Brun founded the AGI in December 1951.

He studied at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, and became director of Architecture d’Aujourd’hui before setting up as a designer. He did trademarks, packaging, book design, illustrations, posters and corporate identity programmes. Jacques was a teacher at the École Internationale and a professor at the École Supérieure des Arts Graphiques in Paris. His ‘Human Rights’ poster for Unesco 1949 was his masterpiece….