Alexander Tochilovsky, Designer, Curator

Interview February 22, 2017. Lubalin Center, Cooper Union.

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ecvny

2 min readMar 29, 2017

ALEXANDER TOCHILOVSKY was born in the USSR, and emigrated to the United States in 1989. He studied at Cooper Union and after graduationing, he began teaching at this same school. He is a graphic designer, typographer, a teacher and since 2010 he is curator of the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography in New York. During this time, he has curated five exhibitions about Lubalin.

As part of our workshop week, we had the privilege to visit the Lubalin Center and meet him. He curated a selection of iconic examples that shined light on his work and life. We were thrilled to have been able to hold in our hands some of the most iconic pieces he designed, such as issues of Fact, Avant Garde, and Eros magazines, or the reversible “72” poster. He also showed us some work that was less well-known, notably some of his advertising or packaging designs.

We were also impressed by his famous New York City Subway poster. Alexander told us the amazing story of how it got into his hands.

Fun fact: as Alexander was talking to us and showing some items, the smoke alarm went off and we all had to evacuate the building for a few minutes. When we were allowed to return, the alarm kept on going off, making the exchange somewhat difficult to pursue, but we all had a good laugh!