Designer: Thomas Geismar, American

Item: HL. 31

Title: Nouveau Salon des cent,
Hommage a Toulouse-Lautrec.

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The Designer - Thomas Geismar

As a principal in Chermayeff & Geismar Inc., the firm he founded with Ivan Chermayeff in 1960, Tom Geismar has been responsible for the design of over 100 graphic identification programs for major businesses, including Mobil Oil, Xerox, Burlington, Chase Manhattan Bank, Best Products, Knoll, Gemini Consulting, PBS and Univision. He has also developed identification and graphic programs for many public institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, The National Park Service, The National Aquarium In Baltimore, The Tennessee Aquarium, Rockefeller Center, and New York University. Mr. Geismar has also done extensive work in exhibition design. Acting as both curator and designer he conceptualised and developed major installations for the United States government at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, 'The Mill' at Burlington House, the Statue of Liberty Museum and major areas of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Recent projects include the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, and major exhibits on Sigmund Freud and Thomas Jefferson at the Library of Congress. Tom Geismar was designer/author of an award-winning book on American folk sculpture 'Spiritually Moving', published by Abrams in 1998. 'TM', a showing ofthe firm's trademarks, was published in 2000.

He has served as Director and Vice President of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. He has served as Andrew Carnegie Professor at the Cooper Union in New York, and as a member of the Yale University Council Committee for the School of Art and on the Advisory Board of the Department of Design at Carnegie Mellon University.

In addition, Mr. Geismar was Chairman of the U.S. Department of Transportation Advisory Committee on transportation related signs and symbols. Under his leadership a new national system of standardized symbols was developed. In 1985 his work on the Transportation Advisory Committee was honoured by President Ronald Reagan who presented Mr. Geismar with the Presidential Design Award.

Geismar's work has been exhibited throughout the world, and he has been honoured with numerous awards from all major professional societies. In 1979, with Ivan Chermayeff, Mr. Geismar received the American Institute of Graphic Arts highest honour, the Gold Medal. In 1983 they shared the First International Design Award from the Japan Design Foundation, and in 1985 they received the Yale Arts Award Medal in recognition for their outstanding accomplishments in the arts. Mr. Geismar received an Honorary Doctorate (DFA) from the Corcoran School of Art in 1995. In 1998 he was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame.

Tom Geismar concurrently attended the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University and graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brown. He then attended Yale University, School of Art and Architecture, where he received a master's degree in graphic design.