Eye Magazine

Far more people have heard of Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas than have encountered the hefty 40 × 29cm, 350-plus page book itself. This is because it was privately published in 1953 by Container Corporation of America (CCA) to be given as a corporate gift to its customers and friends (see ‘Big business, big world’ in Eye 82). Anyone who has had the opportunity to flip through the double-page spreads cannot help but recognise a masterpiece of graphic design. The experience of absorbing the graphics and text Bayer assembled is a tour through the highlights of Modernist information design. The book presents astronomy, geology and meteorology (among other sciences), as well as global natural resources, transportation and economics (among other topics), before descending into the sequence of maps we usually associate with an atlas. Even in this conventional part, maps of each state and country are punctuated with individual collages of images and economic data. Bayer manages to integrate complex combinations of maps, illustrations and data visualisation into a page flow of balanced white space, colour contrasts and typographic clarity.

Whether or not you have had that opportunity to handle Bayer’s book, there is a great deal to learn from reading Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas and Information Design at Midcentury by Benjamin Benus. Confronted with such a book, questions arise. Why did Bayer turn a corporate gift into an exemplar for new forms of visual education? How did he assemble so much scientific information? Why did a paper company sponsor such a project? By orchestrating evidence from several archives Benus produces a critical study that answers these and many other questions in a lively way as well as addressing the most difficult ones. Bayer, his collaborators and his corporate sponsors left many traces …

Paul Kahn, information designer, lecturer at Northeastern University, Boston, US

Read the full version in Eye no. 106 vol. 27, 2024