Comfy Chair Creative Superstore

I first became aware of publisher Ralph Ginzburg and designer Herb Lubalin, through the Avant Garde logo Lubalin created in 1968 for the art magazine of the same name (the logo would later be released in full typesetting form by Lubalin’s own International Typeface Corporation as ITC Avant Garde – one of my personal favorites).  Anyway, Avant Garde was the third title published by Ginzburg and art directed by Lubalin, and like the previous two titles before it (Eros and Fact), was fairly short lived.  After 16 issues, censors shut it down because of an art spread of an alphabet spelled out of nude bodies.  Eros (a magazine focusing on the burgeoning sexuality of the ’60s) was shut down after just 4 issues, and landed Ginzburg in jail for 8 months on federal obscenity charges.  Fact (a humorous satirical journal of society and culture) lasted a bit longer – 5 years, before it was shut down by a lawsuit from Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (who sued over a particularly scathing article on him). (more…)