Ralph Coburn was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1923. His father taught romance languages at the University of Minnesota. In 1926, the family moved to Miami, Florida, where his parents founded a private school. The Coburn School was run by Ralph’s father, who spoke six languages, while his British-born mother, who had lived in Paris […]

Fred studied art history at Middlebury College and photography at the Rhode Island School of Design, and was a professional photographer. A founding principal of Envision Corporation, Fred directed corporate communications media projects for Polaroid, The Boston Globe, Digital Equipment, Sheraton, and many others. Fred helped create Boston’s multimedia presentation bid to host the 1976 […]

When I arrived at the ID, Institute of Design, in 1976, very little of László Moholy-Nagy’s legacy remained. Jay Doblin, the next leading director of the school, as it is told, had rubbish trucks come to remove the emptied-out legacies of the Chicago Bauhaus and its traditions. There was a faculty revolt, and a great […]

When I became an associate at Leverett A. Peters, Associates, Carl Zahn dropped in one day unannounced, just to see what was going on in this new studio on Boston’s Boylston Street, across from the public library. Zahn’s professionalism was highly regarded. He knew the best set of printers from which one could choose for […]

Jacqueline S. Casey practiced an intuitive and organic Modernism. From 1955 to 1989, she was a designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Office of Publications, first under the direction of Muriel Cooper (I believe that this is totally wrong. The only person in charge of all office staff members was John “Mattill” as […]

Jorge Frascara and Guillermina Noël, his wife, became close friends and shared many of their research interests with me.