Ed Fella: Exit Level Design, 1985–2012
This exhibition ran between 31 January –25 March 2022.
This exhibition curated by Rick Poynor showed work of the American graphic designer Edward Fella. For 30 years, Fella (born 1938) worked as a designer, commercial artist and illustrator in Detroit, Michigan. In the second phase of his career – the focus of this exhibition – Fella became, as he put it, an “exit level designer”, leaving clients and commissions behind to teach at California Institute of the Arts and pursue a freewheeling investigation of form unique in contemporary graphic design.
After years of professional studio experience, Fella was a master of diverse graphic styles and hand-lettering. Work that might at first glance seem neglectful of design’s cardinal “rules” came from a deep well of knowledge. He created flyers for lectures by himself and other designers that are loaded with allusions.
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