Rolf Lagersson: Difference between revisions

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'''Rolf Harald Lagersson''' (also spelled '''Lagerson''';{{efn|Although other members of his family used the spelling "Lagersson", Rolf's name was initially spelled "Lagerson". After moving to Denmark in 1965 he began using Lagersson instead. In Swedish sources he remains better known as Lagerson.}} 8 January 1925 – 9 January 2006) was a Swedish artist and [[Wikipedia:Graphic designer|graphic designer]]. He was a student of Anders Beckman, and became a well-known figure in Swedish advertising in the 1950s. After living in Sweden for around 40 years, Lagersson moves to Denmark in 1965 and spent another 40 years there. For 27 years he worked with [[the LEGO Group]] as a designer, creating logos, packaging, catalogue art, and book illustrations. He illustrated hundreds of covers for Swedish and Danish books, winning multiple awards for his works. Some of his most well-known works from Denmark include the logos for [[LEGO]] and the Danish Cancer Society, the latter of which won him the IG Prize in 1980.
'''Rolf Harald Lagersson''' (also spelled '''Lagerson''';{{efn|Although other members of his family used the spelling "Lagersson", Rolf's name was initially spelled "Lagerson". After moving to Denmark in 1965 he began using Lagersson instead. In Swedish sources he remains better known as Lagerson.}} 8 January 1925 – 9 January 2006) was a Swedish artist and [[Wikipedia:Graphic designer|graphic designer]]. He was a student of Anders Beckman, and became a well-known figure in Swedish advertising in the 1950s. After living in Sweden for around 40 years, Lagersson moved to Denmark in the mid-1960s and spent another 40 years there.
 
Lagersson worked with [[the LEGO Group]] as a designer for 27 years, creating logos, packaging, catalogue art, and book illustrations; his work for the company includes the 1973 redesign of the LEGO logo. In Sweden, he is best remembered for designing posters and illustrating hundreds of covers for Swedish and Danish books.


== Biography ==
== Biography ==
Line 29: Line 31:
In Denmark, Rolf started spelling his last name ''Lagersson'', the spelling that his father Ragnar had used. During 1966 Lagersson worked at the [[Wikipedia:Copenhagen|Copenhagen]] branch of the {{ill|Swedish Telegram Agency|sv|Svenska Telegrambyrån|fr|Agence Svenska Telegrambyran}}. In 1967 he began working with [[Niels Hartmann]], a Danish graphic designer who had become a member of [[Wikipedia:Alliance Graphique Internationale|Alliance Graphique Internationale]] that year.<ref name="Vem ar det 1995"/><ref name="AGI Niels"/> In 1968 Lagersson once again started operating his own studio, now based in [[Wikipedia:Hørsholm|Hørsholm]], north of Copenhagen<ref name="Danske selskaber"/> From 1970–1974 Lagersson worked as the creative director at [[Dot Zero|Dot Zero Design Group]], a studio co-owned by [[the LEGO Group]].<ref name="DLPS Lego"/><ref name="Vem ar det 2001"/> Lagersson moved to Plan Design in 1974 and Papermint Design in 1976, but continued working with the LEGO Group into the 1990s.
In Denmark, Rolf started spelling his last name ''Lagersson'', the spelling that his father Ragnar had used. During 1966 Lagersson worked at the [[Wikipedia:Copenhagen|Copenhagen]] branch of the {{ill|Swedish Telegram Agency|sv|Svenska Telegrambyrån|fr|Agence Svenska Telegrambyran}}. In 1967 he began working with [[Niels Hartmann]], a Danish graphic designer who had become a member of [[Wikipedia:Alliance Graphique Internationale|Alliance Graphique Internationale]] that year.<ref name="Vem ar det 1995"/><ref name="AGI Niels"/> In 1968 Lagersson once again started operating his own studio, now based in [[Wikipedia:Hørsholm|Hørsholm]], north of Copenhagen<ref name="Danske selskaber"/> From 1970–1974 Lagersson worked as the creative director at [[Dot Zero|Dot Zero Design Group]], a studio co-owned by [[the LEGO Group]].<ref name="DLPS Lego"/><ref name="Vem ar det 2001"/> Lagersson moved to Plan Design in 1974 and Papermint Design in 1976, but continued working with the LEGO Group into the 1990s.


In his later years, Lagersson suffered from complications caused by [[Wikipedia:Asthma|asthma]].<ref name="Gyllenhoff"/> He ceased operating his personal studio in 2003.<ref name="Danske selskaber"/> Lagersson died on 9 January 2006, one day after his 81st birthday.<ref name="Rolf about"/>
In his later years, Lagersson suffered from complications caused by [[Wikipedia:Asthma|asthma]], limiting his ability to create art.<ref name="Gyllenhoff"/> He ceased operating his personal studio at the end of 2003.<ref name="Danske selskaber"/> Lagersson died on 9 January 2006, one day after his 81st birthday.<ref name="Rolf about"/>


== Works ==
== Works ==

Revision as of 01:12, 8 August 2024

Rolf Lagersson
A greyscale photograph of Lagersson, here in his early 60s. His head and shoulders are visible and he is looking at the camera. He has glasses pushed up onto his forehead.
Lagersson in 1988
Born
Rolf Harald Lagerson

(1925-01-08)8 January 1925
Malmö, Skåne, Sweden
Died9 January 2006(2006-01-09) (aged 81)
Copenhagen, Denmark
EducationAnders Beckmans Reklamskola
Occupations
  • Artist
  • graphic designer
Years active1948–2003

Rolf Harald Lagersson (also spelled Lagerson;[note 1] 8 January 1925 – 9 January 2006) was a Swedish artist and graphic designer. He was a student of Anders Beckman, and became a well-known figure in Swedish advertising in the 1950s. After living in Sweden for around 40 years, Lagersson moved to Denmark in the mid-1960s and spent another 40 years there.

Lagersson worked with the LEGO Group as a designer for 27 years, creating logos, packaging, catalogue art, and book illustrations; his work for the company includes the 1973 redesign of the LEGO logo. In Sweden, he is best remembered for designing posters and illustrating hundreds of covers for Swedish and Danish books.

Biography

Sweden

Rolf Lagerson was born on 8 January 1925 in Malmö, Skåne.[1] He was the second of three children of Ernst Ragnar Lagersson, an electrical engineer, and Ellen Birgitta "Britta" Strömberg.[2][3][4] He initially studied architecture in 1944, but decided against it and quit to work with a printer before later choosing a career in graphic art. From 1946–1948 he studied in Stockholm at Anders Beckman's [sv] school of advertising art [sv][note 2] and the SGF school of typographical design.[1][6]

For the following six years he worked at several advertising agencies: Gumælius Annonsbyrå [sv] in Stockholm from 1948–1950, Benton & Bowles in New York during 1951, and Wilh. Anderssons Annonsbyrå in Stockholm from 1951–1955.[6][7] He also worked at a design agency in Chicago.[8] In 1954 he began working as a freelance artist, operating his own studio in Stockholm from 1955–1965.[1][6] During this decade, Lagerson acted as a consultant art director and designer for various advertising agencies, industrial companies, and publishing houses, as well as Sweden's Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Board of Education [sv].[1] Additionally, Lagerson became a founding member of the Swedish Poster Design Association (SAFFT)[note 3] in 1949, a member of its board in 1954, and the society's president from 1957–1959.[1][10]

Lagerson married Birgitta "Gitt" Hammarberg, a freelance artist and textile designer who had studied fashion at Beckman's school during the time Rolf was also a student there.[11][12] The two had a daughter together, Lotta.[13] In 1965 Gitt and Rolf separated. Rolf moved to Denmark, where he later remarried.[11]

Denmark

In Denmark, Rolf started spelling his last name Lagersson, the spelling that his father Ragnar had used. During 1966 Lagersson worked at the Copenhagen branch of the Swedish Telegram Agency [sv; fr]. In 1967 he began working with Niels Hartmann, a Danish graphic designer who had become a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale that year.[14][15] In 1968 Lagersson once again started operating his own studio, now based in Hørsholm, north of Copenhagen[16] From 1970–1974 Lagersson worked as the creative director at Dot Zero Design Group, a studio co-owned by the LEGO Group.[17][18] Lagersson moved to Plan Design in 1974 and Papermint Design in 1976, but continued working with the LEGO Group into the 1990s.

In his later years, Lagersson suffered from complications caused by asthma, limiting his ability to create art.[10] He ceased operating his personal studio at the end of 2003.[16] Lagersson died on 9 January 2006, one day after his 81st birthday.[8]

Works

Rolf Lagersson designed around 300 cover illustrations for books published in Sweden and Denmark.[8] (figure out which ones are notable enough to list) He also created the cover art for the original 1959–1961 Swedish translations of The Lord of the Rings, using stylised illustrations inspired by Greek paintings.[19][20] As well as criticising Åke Ohlmarks's Swedish translation, author J. R. R. Tolkien disapproved of Lagerson's cover for The Fellowship of the Ring, claiming it had nothing to do with the story and describing it as depicting "pink nudes [which] appear to be fighting some blue nudes of similar shape".[21]

Lagerson's work was exhibited in Oslo in 1957, at the Internordic Association of Commercial Artists's (NT) exhibition of advertising art in Stockholm and at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in 1959, and at the Swedish Design Exhibition in Tokyo in 1960.[1] Three works he designed for books are represented at the Nationalmuseum.[8][22] Lagerson won awards in several Swedish competitions between 1949–1958, and won first prize for Internordic Association of Commercial Artists contests in 1956, 1957, and 1959.[1] In 1980 he was awarded the IG Prize [da] for a logo designed for the Danish Cancer Society [da].[23][24]

Lagerson began creating paper sculptures in 1951, studying from Tadeusz Lipski's [pl] 1947 book Paper Sculpture. He later started designing paper dolls that could stand on their own, inspired by the stop motion films of Czech animator Jiří Trnka.[25] Lagerson's dolls had ping-pong balls for heads, conical paper bodies, and flat paper limbs. The dolls were customised with various paper details to create faces, uniforms, and headwear, and placed in sets also made of paper. The full sculptures were intended for use in colour photography. In his 1957 book Sculpture in Paper, Bruce Angrave compared Lagerson's paper doll art to the works of Walter Trier, "with the added excitement of a three-dimensional over-tone".[25]

In 1972 Lagersson redesigned the LEGO logo for the LEGO Group.[26][17] The new logo was intended to replace the various previous logos to unify the brand during a time when the LEGO Group was expanding internationally.[27] The new design was based on the previous 1964 LEGO logo, but simplified to only feature the company's name, written in bubble-styled lettering contoured with black and yellow.[27][28] Hartmann intended for the logo to be simple and modular enough that it could be applied anywhere.[15] The new logo was publicly used starting in 1973, eventually receiving a minor redesign in 1998.[27]

Select works

  • LEGO logo, 1972

    LEGO logo, 1972

  • "General Caramel", 1975

    "General Caramel", 1975

  • "En lille bog om børn og leg", 1980

    "En lille bog om børn og leg", 1980

  • Fabuland illustration, 1983

    Fabuland illustration, 1983

  • Duplo theme concept art, 1988

    Duplo theme concept art, 1988

  • Duplo theme concept art, 1988

    Duplo theme concept art, 1988

  • LEGO theme concept art, 1989

    LEGO theme concept art, 1989

  • LEGO theme concept art, 1989

    LEGO theme concept art, 1989

  • LEGO environmental symbol, 1995

    LEGO environmental symbol, 1995

  • Ygdrasil, 1995

    Ygdrasil, 1995

  • LEGO packaging, 1971–1997

    LEGO packaging, 1971–1997

Notes

  1. ↑ Although other members of his family used the spelling "Lagersson", Rolf's name was initially spelled "Lagerson". After moving to Denmark in 1965 he began using Lagersson instead. In Swedish sources he remains better known as Lagerson.
  2. ↑ Swedish: Anders Beckmans Reklamskola, renamed to Beckman College of Design (Swedish: Beckmans Designhögskola) in 2003.[5]
  3. ↑ Swedish: Svenska Affischtecknare,[9] later ABCD.[10]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Amstutz, Walter, ed. (1962). Who's Who in Graphic Art. Zurich: Amstutz & Herdeg Graphis Press. p. 433.
  2. ↑ Harness, Paul, ed. (1948). "Lagersson, Ernst Ragnar". Vem är Vem? – Skånedelen [Who is Who? Skåne region] (in svenska). Stockholm: J. O. Peterson. p. 304. Archived from the original on 3 August 2024 – via Project Runeberg.
  3. ↑ "Avdelningsredaktörer". Svensk uppslagsbok [Swedish reference book] (in svenska). Vol. 13 (2nd ed.). Malmö: Förlagshuset Norden. 1949. p. vi. Archived from the original on 4 August 2024 – via Project Runeberg.
  4. ↑ "Ellen Birgitta Lagersson (1897–1984)". Find a Grave. Archived from the original on 2024-08-04. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  5. ↑ "Then and now". Beckmans. Archived from the original on 6 May 2024. Retrieved 2 August 2024.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lagerström, Sten, ed. (1966). "Lagerson, Rolf H". Vem är det: svensk biografisk handbok [Who is it: Swedish biographical handbook] (in svenska) (1967 ed.). Stockholm: Norstedt & Söner. p. 510. Archived from the original on 3 August 2024 – via Project Runeberg.
  7. ↑ A Directory of Foreign Advertising Agencies and Marketing Research Organizations. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. April 1959. p. 109. OCLC 1155970.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "About Rolf Lagersson". Rolf Lagersson Billedmager (in dansk). Archived from the original on 26 January 2024. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  9. ↑ Aynsley, Jeremy. "A Century of Graphic Design". London: Mitchell Beazley. p. 128. ISBN 1-84000-348-0.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Gyllenhoff, Carl (21 January 2006). "Rolf Lagerson". Dagens Nyheter. Stockholm. Off-site copy available here.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Vagland, Jens; Tjelder, Michael; Londen, Magnus (2015). "Rolf Lagerson". Come to Sweden (in svenska). Come to Sweden Publishing AB. ISBN 978-91-637-8312-8. Archived from the original on 26 January 2024.
  12. ↑ Brismo, Karin (1 December 2019). "Juliana i vart hus - Gitt Lindberg Lagerson". designbyBrismo (in svenska). Archived from the original on 5 August 2024.
  13. ↑ Lindqvist, Anna; Widmark, Marie Odenbring (25 September 2016). "Rolf Lagerson". Tryckt till Jul [Printed for Christmas] (in svenska). Archived from the original on 31 July 2024.
  14. ↑ Uddling, Hans; Paabo, Katrin, eds. (1994). "Lagersson, Rolf H". Vem är det: Svensk biografisk handbok [Who is it: Swedish biographical handbook] (in svenska) (1995 ed.). Stockholm: Norstedts förlag. p. 628. ISBN 91-1-943202-X. ISSN 0347-3341. Archived from the original on 5 August 2024 – via Project Runeberg.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Niels Hartmann, Denmark (1967)". Alliance Graphique Internationale. Archived from the original on 31 July 2024.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Rolf Lagersson". Danske selskaber [Danish companies] (in dansk). Archived from the original on 2024-07-31.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "LEGO". Danish Logo Preservation Society. December 2017. Archived from the original on 2018-02-21.
  18. ↑ Jönsson, Lena, ed. (1994). "Lagersson, Rolf H". Vem är det: Svensk biografisk handbok [Who is it: Swedish biographical handbook] (in svenska) (2001 ed.). Stockholm: Norstedt & Söner. p. 650. ISBN 91-7285-042-6. ISSN 0347-3341. Archived from the original on 3 August 2024 – via Project Runeberg.
  19. ↑ Sundmark, Björn (ed.). "The Translation and Visualization of Tolkien's The Hobbit into Swedish, the Aesthetics of Fantasy, and Tove Jansson's Illustrations". Translating and Transmediating Children's Literature. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland AG. p. 124. ISBN 978-3-030-52527-9. The Swedish covers by Rolf Lagerson, both the ones for the first edition 1959–1961 and for the 1967 paperback edition, also work as crossover-illustrations; they represent identifiable scenes and actions from the book, yet they do so in a non-realistic and highly stylized form. The first three (1959–1961) draw inspiration from Greek designs and paintings, while the 1967-set is less stylistically determined.
  20. ↑ "Bogomslag 2". Rolf Lagersson Billedmager (in dansk). Archived from the original on 26 January 2024. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
  21. ↑ Scull, Christina; Hammond, Wayne G. (2006). The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide – Reader's Guide. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 419. ISBN 978-0-618-39101-1. He was no happier with the cover art of the Swedish Fellowship of the Ring (1959): in a draft letter on 14 January 1961, probably to Alina Dadlez, he described it as containing 'pink nudes [which] appear to be fighting some blue nudes of similar shape (in black bathing costumes). Three of the pink nudes are riding horses and have spears; those on foot have axes. Two of the blue men are on oxen; the blues have swords or bows. To what people or incidents in the Tale at any point can this have any conceivable reference?'
  22. ↑ "Rolf Lagerson". Nationalmuseum. Archived from the original on 4 August 2024.
  23. ↑ Bernsen, Jens; Capetillo, Birgitta, eds. (1988). Profession: Designer. Copenhagen: Dansk Design Center. pp. 90–91. ISBN 87-87385-40-6.
  24. ↑ Dickson, Thomas (2006). "Grafisk design". Dansk design. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. p. 476. ISBN 978-87-02-07768-1. Sløjfens facon gav i midten af 1970'eme inspiration til det logo, som Kræftens Bekæmpelse har i dag. Det blev tegnet af grafikeren Rolf Lagersson og tegnestuen Plan Design, der forenklede det gamle mærke til et mere abstrakt symbol for foreningen.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Angrave, Bruce (1957). Sculpture in Paper. London: The Studio Ltd. pp. 86–87.
  26. ↑ "Logos - Symboler". Rolf Lagersson Billedmager (in dansk). Archived from the original on 26 January 2024. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Evamy, Michael (2007). Logo (2015 ed.). London: Laurence King Publishing. pp. 152–153. ISBN 978-1-78067-180-2.
  28. ↑ "A modern, international company – LEGO History". LEGO.com. Archived from the original on 31 July 2024. Retrieved 5 August 2024.

External links

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