Week 5 - Eric Nitsche

Eric Nitsche was a Swiss-born American Graphic Designer (1908 – 1998) had an abundant 60 year career working across the advertising, printing and publishing industries. Nitsche came to prominence in the 1950s, despite his reserved nature, with the production of abstract semi-futurist technical illustrations and posters for the General Dynamics Corporation. It was more along the lines of repackaging military hardware development and the emerging nuclear industry as a sponsor of space. He designed a breakthrough series of posters, in addition to designing their corporate image, annual reports and advertising. He was hired as Art Director for General Dynamics and savored designing technical data for hydraulic systems and cross-sections of airplanes.

In the 1960s Nitsche turned to book production with a memorable series on the history of science and technology – an illustration driven 12 volume set that was printed in multiple languages and sold 2 million copies. A more ambitious 20 volume history of music followed which included contemporized historical engraving. 300 album cover designs and illustrations for an array of magazine and corporate clients were also huge significant achievements of Nitsche. Not long before his death, Nitsche was elected to the New York Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame even though his design outputs are not widely known and there is no devoted websites.