Lester Beall

within the business community, and made people realize the importance of good design to good business. He approached his corporate

design with the notion that everything associated with a company, from reports to packaging, to advertisements, should be treated as though it were a representation

of that company.

Beall is also well known for the identity campaigns he did during the later

half of his career. “The solution to a design problem must come from the problem; in this way is it possible to compel your audience’s attention and plant your message in their head. This philosophy is most evident in the series of posters Beall did for the U. The simple horizon gives his compositions immediate depth, and the strategically placed arrows add movement and rhythm to create compositions which are not only visually interesting, but persuasive as well. Though most of his design devices have been co-opted and reused to the point of meaninglessness, I think that this philosophy of the design methodology remains his most lasting contribution to modern communication design. The influence of European Avant Garde and Bauhaus artists and designers such as Herbert Bayer, El Lissitzky, and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy is obvious in the bright, flat colors and dynamic placement of geometric elements seen in most of his work. The posters display examples of the basic needs of daily rural life, such as light, running water for laundry, farm work, and radio communication stated simply and quietly in slab typefaces and represented by a silhouetted graphic image. “All experience in fields directly or indirectly related to design must be absorbed and stored up, to provide the inspirational source that guides, nourishes and enriches the idea-flow of the designer. " He believed that it was impossible for the designer to work in a vacuum, just as it was impossible to for him to separate the aesthetics of his work from its purpose. He taught that to maintain a relevant voice, the designer must drink up knowledge of other art forms and of the culture he existed in. government between 1937 and 1941, especially those for the Rural Electrification Administration, which were designed to encourage rural residents to electrify their homes.