John Anthony Pistilli was born Giovanni Pistilli on December 4, 1925 in Astoria, New York according to the New York, New York Birth Index (at Ancestry.com) and his World War II draft card. Pistilli’s middle name was on his Social Security application (transcribed at Ancestry.com). His parents were Nicholas and Anna, both Italian immigrants.
Pistilli’s parents and three siblings were aboard the ship Lapland when it departed Naples, Italy on February 17, 1924. The family arrived at the Port of New York on February 29, 1924. The manifest said their final destination was Flushing, New York.
The 1925 New York state census, enumerated June 1, counted the Pistilli family in Astoria, Queens at 12 South Lebanon Terrace.
In the 1930 United States Census, four-and-a-half-year-old Pistilli (line 95), his parents and two siblings resided in Astoria at 25-43 Eighteenth Street. His father was a laborer in the subway.
The 1940 census recorded the Pistillis (lines 54 to 57) in Astoria at 25-47 Eighteenth Street. Pistilli and his father, both clerks, and brother Louis, a chauffeur, all worked in a vegetable business.
On December 6, 1943, Pistilli signed his draft card. His description was five feet eleven inches, 170 pounds, with brown eyes and hair.
Pistilli served in the Navy. His draft card said he was honorably discharge on February 17, 1946. The Long Island Star-Journal, February 21, 1946 said
Armed Forces Discharge 91 at 6 Centers
89 Sailors, Two Army Corporals Included in Group
Six separation centers announced today the honorable discharge of 91 North Queens men. There were 89 sailors and two army corporals in the group.
The veterans and the separation centers where they were released follow: ...
Navy
Lido Beach
John Pistilli, GM 3/c. 25-47 18th street, Astoria [Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class]
At some point Pistilli enrolled at the Jean Morgan School of Art. According to Lubalin 100, Day 13,
... [Pistilli] graduated from the Jean Morgan School of Art in New York City in 1949, where he studied lettering under J. Albert Cavanagh and learned other commercial art skills before completing additional art courses at the City College of New York. Pistilli did a brief “stint with various window display studios,” but soon after, began his employment at Sudler & Hennessey, Inc. in 1949, where he remained until retirement.
A profile of Pistilli, in the Press-Enterprise (Riverside, California), February 27, 2000, said
... After the war, he enrolled in art school and rediscovered his love for lettering. Pistilli said he was one of a few “lettering fools” who was constantly lettering all class assignments, even for subjects such as anatomy.
A special lettering class was formed and taught by J. Albert Cavanaugh [sic], who was one of the top letterers of the time.
In 1949, two weeks after graduating from the Jean Morgan School of Art in New York City, Pistilli was hired by J.B. Robert, Inc., a small studio that handled window displays. In the spring of the following year, the right-handed artist joined Sudler and Hennessey, Inc., where he stayed for the remainder of his career. ...
Pistilli’s lettering instructor, Cavanagh, who was also on the faculty of Pratt Institute in 1947, passed away on July 20, 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts.
According to the 1950 census, Pistilli (line 9) was in the household of his brother, Louis, which included his mother, sister-in-law and nephew. They were Astoria residents at 25-44 14th Place. Pistilli’s occupation was “printer” at an art studio.
The Press-Enterprise profile said Pistilli “designed trademarks for companies such as Reader’s Digest, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Harper’s, Cover Girl, English Leather, Exxon, Whirlpool, Woolworth’s, Schwepps, Cutty Sark, Hertz and Stride Rite.” A photograph of Pistilli included logos for the restaurant, Café des Artistes, and bar, Charley O’s. Below are some of Pistilli’s lettering.
Slipcase front and back
37th Annual of Advertising and Editorial Art and Design (1958)
SH&L logo, Art Direction, September 1958 (additional examples here)
SH&L logo, Print, September–October 1958(cover credited to Herb Lubalin)
Eros, Spring 1962, detail (credit in Art Direction, May 1963)
Eros, Summer 1962, detail
(credit in Art Direction, May 1963)
44th Annual of Advertising & Editorial Art & Design (1965)
Pistilli Roman was used by the Library & Museum of the Performing ArtsBelow: Various headings from a 1979 Lincoln Center program, Stagebill.
In 1988, Pistilli was semiretired and moved to Marshalls Creek, Pennsylvania where he continued to freelance. His “retirement” was recorded in the Congressional Record of the 100th Congress, February 24, 1988.
John Pistilli Retires After 40 Years as Lettering Director
Hon. Bill Green
Of New York in the House of Representatives
Wednesday, February 24, 1988
Mr. Green. Mr. Speaker, my congressional district of New York City quite possibly has the largest concentration of artists of any in the Nation. Yet it is hard to imagine an artist whose work has had greater visibility than lettering designer John Pistilli, who is retiring today after nearly 40 years as lettering director at Sudler and Hennessey Advertising Inc.
The trademarks John has created read like a virtual overview of modern popular culture. They include Reader’s Digest, Rolling Stone, Vogue, McCall’s, Saturday Review, Harper’s, Holiday, Simplicity, Butterick, Cover Girl, English Leather, Avon, Nice’N Easy, Bonnie Bell, Prince Matchabelli, Caravelle, Exxon, Whirlpool, Woolworth’s, Singer, Schweppe’s, Cutty Sark, Hertz, Perdue, Stride Rite, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
John has won numerous awards from such organizations as the American Institute of Graphic Art, the Art Director’s Club, and the Type Director’s Club. In 1959, he received an award from the U.S. Government for his lettering of the Statute of Liberty stamp series.
But of his many accomplishments, Pistilli feels most proud of Pistilli Roman. Requisitioned by Aaron Burns, the typeface was designed and executed in only 2 1/2 weeks for the purpose of introducing a nationwide typeface contest. But it did even more than that; it began a new era in typography: juxtaposing accentuated weights against hairline forms.
Pistilli’s love for lettering goes back to his childhood days in Queens, NY, when he drew designs on the sidewalk with chalk, and even devised fancy numbers for his baseball team’s first, second, and third bases. Following his graduation from the Jean Morgan School of Art in 1949, Pistilli began his lettering career with J.B. Roberts, Inc., a small studio which handled window diplays [sic]. In the spring of 1950, he joined Sudler & Hennessey, where he has remained ever since.
Pistilli’s logo designs derive not only from the sound and meaning of the words, but also from the shapes of the characters within the words. “If you squint your eyes,” he says, “the overall character of the word should reflect a nice balance between positive and negative shapes.” His award-winning “Design 11” logo, created for Sudler & Hennessey’s 11th-floor art department, is a prime example of that balance. He calls this logo “a pure combination of concentric and square forms,” in that it combines perfect circles with perpendicular lines.
Having observed the transition in the past 25 years to phototypesetting, Pistilli does concede, however, that typography has made a great deal of technical progress and will continue to do so. “In the early 1960’s, the use of computer technology to create a multitude of typesetting devices has made typesetting much faster and much less expensive. And phototypesetting has also created unheard of type flexibility: most of our type suppliers can now give us phototypography, typositor strips, minus leading, and minus settings, things which were virtually impossible in metal typesetting.”
If Pistilli’s standards seem high, his personal record of achievement remains his best testimony. In today’s competitive art market, too many artists surrender their creative standards. On more than one occasion, art directors have found themselves at odds with John Pistilli on issues involving type design; but they always end respecting him for standing by his professional convictions.
John has been married to his wife Dorothy for 31 years. They have one son, John, who majored in government at Harvard at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and now attends law school at the University of Southern California.
Pistilli moved to Sun City, California in 1991. Three years later, Pistilli and his wife settled in San Jacinto, California.
Pistilli passed away on August 14, 2003 in Loma Linda, California. An obituary appeared in the Press-Enterprise on August 27, 2003.
John Pistilli created trademarks
Typographer: He designed logos for such clients as Cutty Sark, Exxon and Whirlpool.
San Jacinto—John Pistilli, a nationally known typographer whose work subtly influenced the tastes and buying habits of millions of Americans for more than 40 years, died Aug. 14 at Loma Linda University Medical Center. He was 77.
Mr. Pistilli helped create trademarks for such companies as Schwepps, Whirlpool, Exxon and Cutty Sark, and collaborated on the mastheads for Gourmet, New York and McCall’s magazines. He nay have owed his career to a childhood stutter, said his son, John Jr., a Los Angeles attorney.
“He was a very gentle, low-key guy, and he had stuttering problem as a child,” his son said. “It may simply have been easier for him to communicate graphically.”
Mr. Pistilli grew up drawing pictures in chalk on the sidewalks of his neighborhood in New York City. He lettered the names of friends and drew their portraits, soon earning a reputation for creating fancy numerals and drawing base paths for stickball games.
“The fellows said I could draw a straighter line,” he said in a 2000 interview.
A self-described “lettering fool,” he studied with J. Albert Cavanaugh [sic], one of New York’s top letterers at the time, and graduated from the Jean Morgan School of Art in 1949.
The next year, he was hired by Sudler & Hennessey, a New York advertising agency that specialized in medical accounts. Now part of Young and Rubicam, the agency allowed him to freelance. Soon he was designing logos and working on major national accounts for several agencies. He produced work for Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera and did the lettering for a series of stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 1960.
Mr. Pistilli earned 55 awards and was recognized by the Art Directors Club of New York, the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Type Directors Club of New York.
Ultimately, he designed his own typeface, aptly named Pistilli Roman. He created it to enter a national design competition, but later said it was one of his proudest accomplishments.
“Pistilli Roman was one of the first typefaces designed for photo typesetting,” his son said. “It was a totally new technique at the time, anode course, that process really revolutionized the whole graphics field.”
But, despite being on the forefront of new technology, Mr. Pistilli was not a computer advocate.
“I’m from the old school,” he said in a 2000 interview. “I don’t even want to know where the on-off switch is. I don’t hate computers, but you just lose so much style.”
In 1990, he retired to Sun City and later to San Jacinto with his wife, Dorothy. In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Pistilli is survived by a sister, Theresa Pietramonaco of New York.
Miller-Jones Mortuary in Hemet handled cremation arrangements.
