breaking rules at harper’s bazaar

In 1930 Alexey moved to the U.S. and headed the Advertising Design Department at the Pennsylvania Museum. Four years later, Carmel Snow—the editor of Harper's Bazaar—foresaw the genius of Brodovitch and asked him to head the magazine’s design team. Alexey accepted the offer and introduced a variety of innovations: reiteration, dynamic pagination, scale contrasts, captions, and typography. Marvin Israel, a painter and designer who was an associate of Brodovitch at Bazaar, called him a man “obsessed with change.”

 

he [brodovitch] taught me to be intolerant of mediocrity. he taught me to worship the unknown.

—art kane, fashion and music photographer

Alexey Brodovitch smoking a cigarette, looking into camera

design laboratory

In 1941, Brodovitch started Design Laboratory—a series of informal evening classes for those aspiring to magazine work. The course focused on graphic design and photography and was held in New York till 1966. Students’ worst offense was to present something Brodovitch would call “boring,” while the best compliment one could hope for was “interesting.” During his life, Brodovitch discovered many of the key photographers, artists, and designers of his time: Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Cartier Bresson, Frank Roberts, Jean Cocteau, A. M. Cassandre, Felix Topolski, and Saul Steinberg. Today editorial professionals influenced by Brodovitch and his students continue to shape the course of modern graphic design.

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