LETTERING • LOGOS • LETTERFORMS • ALPHABETS • TYPOGRAPHY • CALLIGRAPHY • ETC
Monday, July 30, 2012
Typography: Asian American International Film Festival
Monday, July 23, 2012
Street Scene: Forbidden Planet
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Broadway view |
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12th Street view |
Friday, July 20, 2012
Creator: Ira Schnapp
“…One day, I stopped the already ancient Ira Schnapp when he came up to the offices. He had been a letterer and logo designer beginning in the ’30s. He showed me how he took artist Joe Shuster’s crude Superman title and turned it into the trademark the world knows and recognizes today….”
—Michael Uslan, The Boy Who Loved Batman: A Memoir (2011)
Israel “Ira” Schnapp was born in Sassow, Austria on October 10, 1895, according to his World War II draft card. The 1910 United States Census recorded his family in Manhattan, New York City at 86 Ludlow Street. He was the fourth of seven children born to Max and Sadie. His father, a retail merchant in the grocery business, emigrated in 1895. His oldest brother, Jacob, followed in 1898. Schnapp, his mother and two older brothers, Samuel and Joseph, arrived in 1900. His sisters, Lena and Sarah, were born in New York.
Schnapp graduated from Stuyvesant High School in June 1913.
Schnapp signed his World War I draft card on June 5, 1917. His surname was misspelled as Schapp. Schnapp’s address in the Bronx was 483 East 170 Street. He was employed as a letterer at the W.T. Slide Company which was located at 115 East 23 Street in Manhattan. Schnapp was described as medium height and slender build with brown eyes and hair.
The New York, New York, Marriage Index, at Ancestry.com, said Schnapp married Beatrice Schwadron on September 30, 1918 in the Bronx.
In the 1920 census, which recorded Schnapp’s first name as Irving, he and Beatrice lived in the Bronx at 1510 Boston Road. He worked as an artist in the moving picture industry. The 1925 New York State Census found the Schnapps, with daughter Therese, in the Bronx at 2305 Grand Avenue. His occupation was artist.
The 1930 census said the Schnapps had a son, Martin, and remained in the Bronx but at 1455 Sheridan. Schnapp was a commercial artist. Sometime this decade he used the name Ira.
Join Superior StudiosThomas G. Wiley has been named vice-president, and Jule Bauch, secretary and production manager, of Superior Studios, Inc., New York. Hector Zambrano and Ira Schnapp have joined the technical staff and Sam Golden and Merlin Lewis, the sales force.
Schnapp—Ira, beloved husband of Beatrice, devoted father of Martin and Teddy, loving grandfather of Jonathan David and dear brother. Services Sunday, 10:30 A.M. at “The Riverside,” 76 St. and Amsterdam Ave.
Todd’s Blog, Ira Schnapp: His Life, Work and Family, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6
Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999
Wikipedia
Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2025 Inductee
Ira Schnapp (1894–1969)
Schnapp was a logo designer and letterer who brought his classic and art deco design styles to DC Comics (then National Comics) beginning with the redesign of the Superman logo in 1940. He did a great deal of logo and lettering work for the company in the 1940s. Around 1949, he joined the staff as their in-house logo, cover lettering, and house-ad designer and letterer, and continued in that role until about 1967. He also designed the Comics Code seal.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Anatomy of a Logo: Forbidden Planet, Part 2
was removed
The Forbidden Planet Halloween Ads, 1982–1989
(Part 1; next post on Friday: Ira Schnapp)