Mel Byars

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Mel Byars (born in Columbia, South Carolina), is an American design historian.

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The earliest award he received a small trophy at age thirteen for a school-newspaper piece. Two years later. He was granted further further recognition in a poetry contest.

Previously to The New School’s graduate curriculum of School of Media Studies, he studied journalism in the late 1950s at the University of South Carolina. [1] [2] and subsequently settled in New York City. [3]

His first professional employment was as a book designer of a large number of titles for McGraw-Hill in New York City, including the format General McArthur’s autobiography and 888-page Warren Commission report of the John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Prof. Byars eventually became active as an art director or creative director for a number of publishers, including a group of professional magazines at Bill Publications in the late 1960s, after Prentice-Hall and for advertising agencies] such as Leber Katz Partners (subsumed into Foote, Cone & Belding, the world's second oldest advertising agency, founded 1873). In the early 1980s, he studied anthropology under Stanley Diamond (1921–1991) in the master's-degree program of The New School for Social Research. And, previously there, he was enrolled in the School of Media Studies.

A decade later, Prof. Byars turned to the history of applied art/industrial design and served as the archivist and organizer of the Thérèse Bonney Photography Collection (images of 1925-35 French decorative arts and other subjects) in New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and has been a major donor of 20th-century objects to the museum's permanent collection. [4] He has made other donations to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (Uměleckoprůmyslová museum v Praze), [2] Israel Museum, [5] Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and Columbia Museum of Art. [2]

Prof. Byars has taught at Pratt Institute and Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and Holon Institute of Technology in Israel [6] and at others as well as lectured widely [7] while remaining active in the advertising sector. From 2017 to 2019, he wrote essays on a wide range of subjects for Elephant art and culture magazine. [8] [9]

He retired in 2015 when in his 80s.[ citation needed ]

Awards/works

Byars's most significant work is the second edition (2004) of The Design Encyclopedia, which won the Besterman/McColvin Gold Medal for the best reference book of 2004 from the British Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. [10] [11] When active in graphic design earlier in his career, he won a number of awards, including from the Art Directors Club of New York and had works published in various books such as 100 Years of Dance Posters [12] and Dance Posters. [13]

In addition to The Design Encyclopedia, other literary works include more than a dozen books, essays for various design-exhibition catalogs, book introductions and articles for I.D. , Beaux Arts, Clear, Echoes, Graphis, [14] form, and other periodicals. A number of the books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Hebrew. [15]

Bibliography

References

  1. List of University of South Carolina people
  2. 1 2 3 "'Psychedelic Design' exhibit at CMA explores rock poster revolution of '60s". 'Psychedelic Design' exhibit at CMA explores rock-poster revolution of 1960s - The Daily Gamecock newspaper at University of South Carolina. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  3. "Burnishing the Furnishings". Haaretz.
  4. "Mel Byars | People | Collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum".
  5. "Collections | the Israel Museum, Jerusalem".
  6. "创造力在边缘:传统工艺、地方资源与可持续设计之路".
  7. "Arango Design Foundation, Inc., Miami, FL". bisprofiles.com. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  8. "Exhausted". June 5, 2017.
  9. "Read, Tear and Wipe". August 13, 2017.
  10. "Archived copy". www.cilip.org.uk. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. Kathryn Beecroft, compiler. CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Yearbook 2004-2005, London, 2005.
  12. Walter Terry and Jack Rennert, 100 Years of Dance Posters, New York: Darien House, 1975
  13. Dance Posters New York: Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1979.
  14. "Graphis Issue 318". graphis.com.
  15. "Pentagon Patches book: secret, scary military guys with sick senses of humor". Core77. Retrieved September 18, 2023.