Professor honored by design group

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R. Roger Remington, a distinguished professor of design and graphic design at Rochester Institute of Technology, has been inducted into Alliance Graphique Internationale—an exclusive group of the world’s leading graphic artists and designers.

R. Roger Remington, a distinguished professor of design and graphic design at Rochester Institute of Technology, has been inducted into Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI)—an exclusive group of the world’s leading graphic artists and designers.

Remington’s official induction will be recognized at the AGI Congress in London this September. Widely considered the “Academy Awards” of the design industry, AGI has approximately 350 members from 27 countries around the globe and only admits members who have achieved high professional standing in the field of graphic design in their native country or internationally.

“After spending 50 years of my career in design and design education, this recognition is very special and significant to me,” Remington says. “Many of AGI’s members are my friends and I am deeply honored to join them in this most prestigious organization. Furthermore, this greatly enhances the position of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies because of its international focus.”

As Vignelli distinguished professor of design at RIT, Remington was instrumental in the development of the Vignelli Center for Design Studies—a museum of design that houses the Vignelli archive. The center advances innovative global programming in design education.

Massimo Vignelli says Remington’s induction into AGI is a lifetime achievement award aptly recognizing his dedication to the design industry.

“Roger is one of the few historians and teachers of Modernism in graphic design today; he has dedicated his life to it,” says Vignelli, himself an AGI member for the past 50 years and who also served as the organization’s president. “Roger will be among his peers—people who know his work and respect him. This recognition also adds further prestige to RIT for having such high-caliber teachers and leaders in the design profession.”

Vignelli, a close friend of Remington’s since 1979, adds that his induction into AGI is a further appreciation of Remington’s tireless work with the Vignelli Center for Design Studies.

“Without Roger, the Vignelli Center would have never happened. He is the creator and the soul of it,” Vignelli says. “He made the archive a teaching instrument and a formidable legacy to RIT.”

Remington is the first faculty member in the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences’ School of Design to receive an endowed professorship and has authored four books on graphic design history.

A native of West Palm Beach, Fla., Remington studied graphic design at RIT and art history and printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He considers himself primarily a teacher who has critical interests in design studies (graphic design history, theory and methods), research, writing and graphic design practice. He received the Eisenhart Annual Award for Outstanding Teaching—RIT’s highest recognition of teaching excellence.

Since 1982, he has been earnestly engaged in the research, interpretation and preservation of the history of graphic design. He has co-chaired two major symposia on graphic design history and written four critical books on design history: Nine Pioneers in American Graphic Design for The MIT Press; Lester Beall: Trailblazer of American Graphic Design and American Modernism Graphic Design 1920-1960 for Laurence King Publishers in London (distributed in the United States by Yale University Press); and Design and Science—The Life and Work of Will Burtin was published by Lund Humphries. Laurence King, the British publishing house, recently announced that Remington’s American Modernism book is now in its second edition with a new format.

Design magazines CA Magazine, Graphis, PRINT and EYE have all featured his articles. Remington is also the force behind a 25-year quest to preserve the original source works by the majority of the foremost designers of the post-war period. This Cary Graphic Design Archive includes career works by Beall, Burtin, Cipe Pineles, William Golden and Alvin Lustig, along with 30 others.

For these scholarly achievements, he became a laureate for the Hall of Fame of the New York Art Directors Club in 2008. He administers a summer master designer workshop with Massimo Vignelli. In 2011, he curated an exhibition of the works of Alexey Brodovitch in Moscow for Harper’s Bazaar-Moscow. Currently, he is working on a new book, Will Burtin: Selected Writings on Design, Education and Communication.