Customer Reviews

Dorfsman and CBS

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I had the pleasure of working with Lou, and I have nothing but great things to say about this book. I cherish my copy. I am very dissapointed to learn that this book is no longer in print. This book has so much to offer anyone in advertising, communication, and broadcast media.

Why did CBS (in the past) look so classy? My answer would be Bill Golden and Lou Dorfsman and every page in this book will confirm it. Everything matters when a company wants a `look' and Lou Dorfsman's creativity was everywhere. On page forty there is a CBS letterhead he designed and he took the trouble to type a specimen letter and indicated precise instructions to be followed by every company typist and it works beautifully.

Hess and Muller have selected an amazing collection of CBS media for the book and what is here is probably only a small selection of what Dorfsman created over forty years at the company. Look through the pages and it soon becomes apparent that clarity of image and typography, both locked together, produce the best results. I think it's a shame in this digital age that nothing like the range of examples in the book will ever be created again for an individual company.

The book is as handsome as a Lou Dorfsman product (though I thought the italic text introducing each chapter slightly annoying to read) everything is captioned and many of the printed examples are in themes which have their own short bit of explanatory text. Beautifully printed with a matt varnish used to define the printed pages with images, headlines and copy printed on top. Movies and trailers are shown as film strips, books, brochures and the famous CBS diaries are shown reproducing several example pages.

The book is the ultimate celebration of a creative mastermind.

***LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

*I mentioned Bill Goldman (he designed the CBS eye logo) and he was the creative mind at the company before Dorfsman. A book of his work was published in 1962: The Visual Craft of William Golden

Oh, how I wish I could own this wonderful book, which is a favorite to peruse through at the library. The word "genius" is over-used, but it really applies to Dorfsman. This book has ample examples of this man's brilliance. When you think of CBS, chances are, you're thinking of the images of Dorfsman. The Eye. The Font. Everything anyone who watched CBS television or CBS radio from the 1950s to the 1970s knows what I'm talking about. Every aspect of that network's "look" was due to Dorfsman.

In an age when advertising seems more interested in impressing account executives than informing its audience, the classic work of Dorfsman provides an invaluable education. In fact, I'd bet if a radio or TV ad exec spent an hour looking at this book, seeking inspiration, he or she would probably be able to turn out much more effective ad campaigns than he or she are today. His copy ranged from the minimalist (A list of the numbers 1-15, with two crossed out, copy saying "These aren't ours," demonstrating how CBS dominated the daytime Nielsens) to the very convincing copy he generated to convince New Yorkers that they NEED to listen to WCBS with its new all-news format.
History demonstrates how effective this material was in the 1960s.

Invaluable! I'll take Dorfsman over Degars any day.