Roger Black (graphic designer)

Roger Black is an American graphic designer whose work has been influential in the design of magazines, newspapers, digital typography and the web. His contributions include designs for Rolling Stone, Esquire, The New Republic, Fast Company, Reader's Digest, Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle and the website Bloomberg.com.

Roger David Black
Roger Black (2015)
Born(1948-08-18)August 18, 1948
Austin, Texas, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Chicago (Political Science, 1970)
OccupationGraphic designer
Websitewww.rogerblack.com

Early life

Roger Black was born in Austin, Texas, to Eleanor Fox Black and J. J. Black, an architect who built more than 200 homes in Midland, Texas and several buildings in New York.[1] His mother, Eleanor, worked in the business department of The New York Times in the mid-1920s and left to work at The American Mercury, a magazine published in the Roaring Twenties. Black attended boarding school in Massachusetts.[2]

Early career

Roger Black's first position as a publication art director was at the alternative weekly LA, edited by Karl Fleming and funded by Max Palevsky.[3]

Rolling Stone and subsequent magazines

Black was hired at Rolling Stone magazine as an associate art director in May 1975 and a year later became the top art director in 1976. He undertook a complete redesign in 1977, coinciding with the magazine's tenth anniversary and transition from a pulp publication to a slick magazine.[4]

He left in 1978 and became a design director for New York and New West magazines and for Los Angeles magazine from 1978 to 1981. He worked as art director for The New York Times Magazine from 1982 to 1984 and was promoted to director of editorial art for The New York Times in 1984. In 1982 he helped launch Out magazine with Michael Goff. [5]In 1985, he became art director for Newsweek magazine, followed by Smart Magazine (1988–1990) and Esquire magazine (1993).

In 1995, he designed John F. Kennedy Jr.’s George magazine.[6]

“He has designed more magazines than anybody else,” New York magazine writer Michael Wolff wrote in 1999. “Roger has created a standard. Using a Macintosh, he has become the Windows of print.”[7]

Other Ventures

Black incorporated the design consultancy Roger Black, Inc. in the 1980s and has worked for publishing and corporate clients internationally. Black was an early adopter of desktop publishing and subsequently, the World Wide Web, designing sites for MSNBC, the Discovery Channel, and drugstore.com in the mid-90s. [8]

In 1989, he co-founded the Font Bureau with typographer David Berlow and became an early pioneer in the digital typography [9] With Terry McDonell, Black launched Outside magazine while at Rolling Stone. Roger also created the first all-desktop-published magazine, Smart, backed by publishing entrepreneur Owen Lipstein.[7]

In 1993, Black co-founded the international design firm Danilo Black with Eduardo Danilo, which was incorporated in 2001 as Danilo Black Inc. [10]

He moved to Silicon Valley for several years in the mid-1990s and was a member of the founding team of the high-speed cable Internet service provider @Home Network, where he designed the interface of its portal.[11]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Black served as chief creative officer of the Web solutions provider Circle.com, overseeing a creative team of 200 designers.[10]

Black serves as a director of Type Network, a typography licensing firm, founded in 2016.[8]

Awards and Honors

Black is a winner of the Society for News Design’s Lifetime Achievement Award.[12] “Roger Black is one of our industry’s titans, a visionary and one who has made golden and elegant any project he has ever touched,” fellow designer Mario Garcia said. “He is a perfectionist and [a] seeker of excellence.”[13]

Works

Roger Black's Desktop Design Power (1991, Bantam Books) Google Books

Web Sites that Work (1997, Adobe Press, with Sean Elder) Google Books

References
  1. "J.J. Black obituary". The New York Times. 1983-09-02. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
  2. "The Mercury". RogerBlack.com. 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
  3. "Karl Fleming dies at 84". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times. 2012-08-12. Retrieved 2020-10-05. an alternative weekly newspaper named LA that he founded with the backing of Los Angeles philanthropist Max Palevsky.
  4. "Roger Black Collection". Type Network. 2018. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  5. "Roger Black: The Master Of Creative Magazine Design For Such Famed Titles As Rolling Stone, Esquire & Newsweek Talks About His Work And His Life – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Roger Black". October 4, 2016. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  6. "Roger Black: The Master Of Creative Magazine Design For Such Famed Titles As Rolling Stone, Esquire & Newsweek Talks About His Work And His Life – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Roger Black". October 4, 2016. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  7. Wolff, Michael (1999-11-29). "Meet Roger Black". New York Magazine. New York magazine. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
  8. "Font Bureau on Type Network". Jan 17, 2019. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  9. [revolution.http://davidberlow.fontbureau.com "Berlow"]. Font Bureau. 2014. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  10. Levere, Jane (Jan 8, 2001). "Turning His Eyes to the Internet, With His Compass Set South". New York Times. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  11. Rhodes, Lucien (1996-01-01). "The Race for more Bandwidth". Wired magazine. Wired). Retrieved 2020-10-12.
  12. "An Evening with Roger Black". AIGA / the professional association for design. AIGA. 2015-04-13. Retrieved 2020-10-05.
  13. Berlin, Jonathon (2012-10-24). "Lifetime Achievement Award, Roger Black: Innovator, leader, visionary". Society for News Design (SND). Society for News Design (SND). Retrieved 2020-10-04.
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