Alphonse Cassandra: Famous Artist and Typographer

[Gare]

It wasn't until I was poring through some Harper's Bazaar 1930s and 1940s covers that Conde Naste lets you download fro free at their site, that I noticed a familiar name at the bottom of the cover. A.M. Cassandre.

Wow! Wasn't he a typographer? Answer: Yes he was, the two most notable fonts he's responsible for are Peignot 93 weights, and I think FontShop calls their imitation "Penultimate"), and Bifur, which is a little too complex to work with at a good clip as a digital file because of all the small halftone stripes running through the characters to suggest a grey+black font.



A few years ago, I did a logical thing—the only logical thing I've done in years—and created a two-font system for reproducing Bifur easily in two colors.





His work is as distinctive as it is a marvel to view, IMO. He also designed the now classic Yves Saint Laurent logo. I do not think Cassandre was impaired by any macho gender bias. His stuff, to a serious artist, is just inspirational whether you're a male or female artist.


If you do a search on him, by the way, he changed his name from Adolphe to Alphonse, and finally went by A.M.Cassandre, born of the Ukraine but more than a little nervous about having a name like Adolph during the war years. His birthname is also "Mourin", not Cassandre, but fair enough...he spent many years teaching in France.

My Best,

[mwenz]

Thanks, Gary. Another welcome rabbit hole to scurry down through!

Mike

[Gare]

Oh, and it wasn't just the magazine covers, either.

Cassandre did posters, too; many French spirits were honered to have him do posters.

The poster work to my eye seemed to be a comfortable blend between Art Deco, and the Russian Revolution propaganda posters:





-g