The Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography (HMCT) presents Artful Impact: The Posters of Abram Games.

Opening Reception

This comprehensive collection, on exhibit in the United States for the first time, will open with a reception on Saturday, May 18 from 4-6 PM in the South Campus Gallery. Acclaimed designer, film director, and protégé of Games, Arnold Schwartzman, will be sharing remarks at 5 PM.

Open to the public and free of charge, the exhibition runs through July 28, 2019.

British designer Abram Games (1914-1996), holds an important place in the legacy of twentieth-century graphic design. For over five decades he interpreted the social, political, and commercial pulse of his country by absorbing the influences around him and referencing them in his works. His place in the study of graphic design history has been somewhat over-shadowed by his contemporaries and friends Josef Muller-Brockman, Tom Eckersley and Paul Rand—all born in 1914 as well—or by the simple nature of our visual memory to recall a great design but not its designer.

As a graphic thinker and social observer, Games created designs that commanded attention and sparked reactions. His works were often direct and deceptively simple: striking images joined brief, compelling slogans rendered mostly in hand-drawn display lettering, to capture the eye, the mind, and the heart. He followed tradition by using familiar objects, then embraced cutting-edge modernism by rendering them as simplified shapes or bold silhouettes that sometimes doubled as playful visual puns. By uniting commonplace with avant-garde, Games quickly delivered an emotive message. Even today his works can inspire, amuse, or disturb.