Joe Caroff, the not announced graphic designer whose emblematic creations included the James Bond pistol 007 logo, posters for West Side Story And A hard day of night and typography for Last Tango in Paris,, Manhattan And Rollerblagedied on Sunday. He was 103 years old.
Caroff died a day of birthday n ° 104 in palliative care at his home in Manhattan, said his sons, Peter and Michael Caroff, The New York Times.
Caroff has also prepared the opening title sequences for films such as Richard Pantry A bridge too far (1977), Volker Schlöndorff’s Death of a seller (1985), Gene Saks’ Brighton beach Memories (1986) and Martin Scorsese The last temptation of Christ (1988), who withdrew to reveal a crown of thorns.
His poster portfolio included those for a dozen Woody Allen Plus films Oh dad, poor dad, mom hung you in the closet and I feel so sad (1963), A handful of dollars (1964), For a few more dollars (1965), Too late the hero (1970), Tell me you love me, Junie Moon (1970), Cabaret (1972), A single woman (1978) and Gandhi (1982).
In addition, Caroff has designed the logo and signature title for Orion Pictures, several album covers for Decca Records and the logos for Olympic ABC coverage (with the circular letters of the network and five intertwined Olympic rings), ABC News and 20/20 (stylized to look like a pair of glasses).
The only quality he wanted his work to have been “effervescence,” he said in the documentary TCM 2022 By design: the story of Joe Caroff. “I want him to have a life, he doesn’t want to stay there flat.”
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For his first film work – he worked on more than 300 campaigns during his career – the director of artists of United, David Chasman, hired him to design the poster to West Side Story (1961), then asked him to offer header paper for an advertising release linked to the first Bond film, Dr no. (Chasman had designed the 1962 film poster.)
“He said:” I need a small decorative thing on the top “”, remembers Caroff in 2021. “I knew that the designation (jump) was 007, and when I wrote the seven stem, I thought:” It looks like the handle of a pistol for me. “It was very spontaneous, no effort, it was an instant creativity.”
Inspired by the favorite pistol of Ian Fleming, a Walther Ppk, Caroff attached a barrel and a trigger in the 007 and for his work received $ 300, the rate in force for such a mission, he said. Even if the logo, although changed in a subtle way, was presented on each bond film and on millions of goods, it has received no credit, no residues, no royalties.
However, the logo brought it “a lot of business,” he said. “It was like a small advertising piece for me.”
Joseph Caroff was born on August 18, 1921 in Linden, New Jersey. He had four older sisters and a younger brother. His father, Julius, was a painter who “could make a plaster wall look like a wooden wall … It was not as if he had just painted him, he rendering That, ”he said.
While attending the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, he helped the French graphic designer Jean Carlu on the realization of the 1942 propaganda poster “America’s response! Production ”for the American War Information Office. It had a large gloved hand on a key. (Carlu, whose right arm had been cut in a Paris trolley accident, had designed the poster for Charlie Chaplin’s film in 1921 The kid).
“In Carlu, there was no time left,” he told Thilo von Debschitz in an interview in 2021 for Eye review. “Sometimes he asked me to come at eight in the morning, sometimes not before 10 a.m. I was able to participate in major design projects and learn a lot of techniques different from him. ”
Caroff obtained his diploma in 1942 after a specialization in advertising design, being elected class president for three consecutive years and as editor -in -chief of art in the school directory, Prattonia.
Five days after getting married, Caroff in 1943 headed abroad to serve in the US military, and he would load propaganda leaflets on which he had worked with Carlu earlier in planes that would drop them in Europe.
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Back home after 36 months, Caroff won a job at Alan Berni & Associates, then opened his own book design company. The first for which he was paid was for the cover of Norman Mailer’s first novel, Nudes and deadPosted for the first time in 1948.
“I loved doing this work,” he said in the documentary TCM, “mainly because it was an opportunity to read a book, to interpret it and to propose a conception of cover that I felt better to express what was in this book.”
Caroff had the idea of West Side Story Poster – He presents textured letters that look like bricks and ballet -shaped contours of lovers Maria and Tony on Fire escape – after seeing clips from the film. (He said that it had helped he was a Sider West in real life.)
One of his pleasure touches the Beatles ‘poster’ poster A hard day of night put a knot in a handful of guitar. “It was frankly a whim,” he said. “He does nothing except to create an original note, nothing more.”
After 18 years, he had a horseman alone, he founded the agency J. Caroff Associates in 1965, and he and his staff of 22 people, working outside offices on East 57th Street in Manhattan, often managed 10 film projects at the same time.
As Von Debschitz told him in an interview for Print“His poster for Tattoo – A (1981) Erotic thriller produced by (frequent customer) Joseph E. Levine – caused a scandal because he represented a naked woman with linked feet. The feminists (and probably pubescent men) demolished the posters in the metro, which led to even more advertising. Levine told Caroff: “You did better with your fucking poster than I had done with my fucking film.” “”
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He invented a undulating font for Last Tango in Paris (1972) and found treatments that used roller skates and increases to explain Rollerblage And Manhattan For these films from 1975 and 1979, respectively. He also shaped a train outside the poster for the poster to The big train flight (1978).
He retired in 2006 at 86 to focus on painting.
In addition to his sons, the survivors include his daughters-in-law, Ruth and Cynthia, and her granddaughter, Jennifer. His 81 -year -old wife Phyllis, a longtime teacher at the Hunter College School of Social Work he met during a New Year’s party, died in February, four days less than 101.
After decades of ignorance by Bond producers, Caroff received an Omega watch with an 007 engraving by Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson and Eon Productions as a gift from the 100th anniversary.
Caroff was asked if he had saved one of his original renderings over the years. Think about how much it was worth the value! Alas, he had thrown almost everything.
“Probably not an intelligent thing to do, but I have never attached what I was doing to a greatness,” he said. “I worked, the final point. I was only an artist. “
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