Design history · Periodicals
U&lc (Upper and lower case)
The tabloid journal that put ITC's new typefaces in front of every designer.
In 1973 the International Typeface Corporation launched a large-format tabloid and handed Herb Lubalin the art direction. U&lc — Upper and lower case — ran free to designers, typographers and art directors worldwide for 26 years. Each issue put ITC's catalogue to work on the page: ITC Avant Garde Gothic (which Lubalin had co-designed with Tom Carnase), ITC Lubalin Graph, ITC Garamond, ITC Souvenir. The spreads were specimen settings but they were also arguments — tight letterforms locked into composition, type treated as image. Lubalin called it every designer's dream: being your own client. He died in May 1981. The journal continued under successive editors until print ceased in 1999. ITC was acquired by Agfa Monotype in 2000; its library became part of Monotype Imaging.
Design history · Periodicals
U&lc (Upper and lower case)
The tabloid journal that put ITC's new typefaces in front of every designer.
In 1973 the International Typeface Corporation launched a large-format tabloid and handed Herb Lubalin the art direction. U&lc — Upper and lower case — ran free to designers, typographers and art directors worldwide for 26 years. Each issue put ITC's catalogue to work on the page: ITC Avant Garde Gothic (which Lubalin had co-designed with Tom Carnase), ITC Lubalin Graph, ITC Garamond, ITC Souvenir. The spreads were specimen settings but they were also arguments — tight letterforms locked into composition, type treated as image. Lubalin called it every designer's dream: being your own client. He died in May 1981. The journal continued under successive editors until print ceased in 1999. ITC was acquired by Agfa Monotype in 2000; its library became part of Monotype Imaging.
Key facts
- Founded
- 1973, New York — International Typeface Corporation (ITC)
- Founders
- Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin and Edward Rondthaler (co-founders of ITC, 1970)
- Art director
- Herb Lubalin, 1973–1981 (until his death, 24 May 1981)
- Format
- Large-format tabloid newsprint; distributed free to designers worldwide
- Run
- 1973–1999 (print); over 120 issues
- Purpose
- Showcase ITC typefaces; advance expressive editorial typography
Key works & examples
ITC Avant Garde Gothic — type specimen as run in U&lc
1970
ITC Avant Garde Gothic was designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase in 1970, derived from the logotype Lubalin had drawn for Avant Garde magazine. Its geometric circular forms, close-set characters and distinctive ligatures gave ITC its first catalogue hit. Condensed weights were added by Ed Benguiat in 1974. U&lc ran specimen settings of the face from its first issue; by the mid-1970s the typeface was in advertising, magazines and on billboards across the United States. The uppercase O — almost a pure circle — is the letterform the era is remembered by.
U&lc May 1987 — typographic spread
1987
A 1987 issue of U&lc — six years after Herb Lubalin's death. The journal kept going under successive editors, retaining its tabloid format and its function as ITC's showcase for new typefaces. By the mid-1980s the catalogue had grown: Ed Benguiat, Tony Stan and others had added faces alongside Lubalin's originals. Issues from this period are less experimental than the Lubalin-era compositions, but the print run remained large and the journal stayed a reference point for type-conscious designers until publication ceased in 1999.
Herb Lubalin — typographic logo designs (Lubalin logos compilation)
1970
A selection of typographic logo designs by Herb Lubalin — work that shows the method he brought to U&lc. Lubalin studied at Cooper Union and spent years in advertising before co-founding Lubalin, Smith, Carnase with Aaron Burns and Tom Carnase. His approach was consistent across contexts: letterforms treated as interlocking graphic units, set tightly, often with custom ligatures, the wordmark functioning as an image rather than a label. U&lc gave him a large format and no commercial brief. He used it the same way. He died in May 1981, aged 63.