Erik Nitsche

Born in Switzerland in 1908, Erik Nitsche was a graphic designer known for his innovative work in book design, illustration, and typography. Nitsche studied at the Collège Classique in Switzerland and the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich before immigrating to the United States in 1934. He designed a number of covers for avant-garde and multilingual cultural publications in Europe as well as illustrations and covers for major American magazines such as Life, Town and Country, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair. Nitsche also developed advertising and promotional campaigns for the cinema giant Twentieth Century Fox and the New York Transit Authority, and produced more than 200 album covers for Decca Records. Nitsche may be best known for his historic relationship with General Dynamics, whose innovative graphic identity and information graphics he produced in the 1950s. He was also responsible for more than 2,000 color illustrations reproduced in the five-volume encyclopedia L’Épopée Nationale d’un Siècle. Nitsche continued to work actively in design until his death in 1998.

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