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Helmut Krone. The book. Graphic Design and Art Direction (concept, form and meaning) after advertising's Creative Revolution. Written and designed by Clive Challis THE CAMBRIDGE ENCHORIAL PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM 268 pages; $85 think big
The tagline of legendary art director Helmut Krone's most famous print ad seems lost on Clive Challis. In his masterpiece of advertising design, Krone j uxtaposed the headline "Think Small" with the diminutive image of a Volkswagen Beetle surrounded by an ocean of white space. While the ad, created at the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, has become an icon of advertising's creative heyday, Challis clearly disregarded its message of simplicity, minimalism, and economy when he set out to profile the life and work of the late Krone, one of the stars of DDB's golden years and a founding father of the industry's late-'sos conceptual uprising.
The book's title, Helmut Krone. The book. Graphic Design and Art Direction (concept, form and meaning) afler advertising's Creative Revolution, is indicative of Challis's approach: More than a mouthful, it reveals how little the author-a former adman and graphic designer who now heads the advertising program at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London-seems to have gleaned from the vigorously crafted headlines that defined the work of Bill Bernbach's shop. But if Challis's copywriting skills wouldn't have made the cut at DDB, his approach enables him to cover his subject with an astonishing level of insider knowledge. While Challis's writing is at times dry and difficult to parse, HelmutKrone provides readers with an almost unprecedented level of understanding about the gifted and difficult art director and designer.
DDB's mantra, from the late '50s onward, was to communicate with consumers in visceral, emotional ways; more than anyone, Krone translated that catchall into a...