Armin Hofmann (Swiss, b. 1920) is associated with a graphic design movement known as the Swiss Style, which originated in Switzerland in the 1940s and 50s. Also referred to as the International Typographic Style, the Swiss Style is characterized by a recognition of the importance of typography—especially sans-serif fonts—as an essential element of design. The...

George Barbier’s Au Jardin des Hespérides (Garden of the Hesperides) appeared in 1913 in Gazette du Bon Ton. Translated as the “Journal for Good Taste,” it was intended for an elite readership concerned with high-society culture and entertainment, as well as the latest developments in fashion and beauty. The publication was led by the publishing...

The publisher J.M. Dent was an admirer of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, founded in 1889 and known for expensive, lavish publications featuring illustrations and decorations by artists such as Edward Burne-Jones printed from hand-cut woodblocks. Dent conceived the idea of producing books in the style of the Kelmscott Press but at a much lower cost,...

Helen Hokinson, or “Hoky” as her friends called her, contributed nearly 1,800 cartoons and vignettes and 68 cover designs to The New Yorker in the first half of the 20th century. Her long-lasting association with the magazine began just a few months after it launched, when a drawing of a round, middle-aged woman standing on...