Dream Big

For some quirk of data collection, I am listed in a book about Saul Bass and Walter Allner. This book does not exist. If you’re one of the people who insist I have a copy and won’t give it up, please believe me. If it were to exist, I could retire happy. To even be mentioned with Saul Bass and Walter Allner is a huge honor. In this case, it’s just bad data entry at Amazon. Walter Allner designed some of Fortune magazine’s most incredible covers. Allner, trained at the Bauhaus, was one of the pioneers in the field who brought modernism in typography to American design. His Fortune covers are examples of a minimal and graphic approach. He told his students, “Raise the aesthetic standard — the public is more perceptive than you think.” These covers and his body of work presume that the audience is intelligent and visually literate. There are no big headshots of Britney Spears. In addition, for those of you who are saying, “Yeah, so what, I could do that stuff.” This was before Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. The windows of the Time & Life Building on the 500 Fortune cover are actually turned on. For real.