The year is 1955, and Cold War tensions have begun to escalate. General Dynamics is a newly formed parent company overseeing eleven manufacturers, producing cutting edge technology for the defense of the United States. The company is capitalizing on the American policy of nuclear deterrence, but John Jay Hopkins, General Dynamics' president, wants a graphic identity for the company that casts it as an arbiter of peace and prosperity, not war and destruction. How's that for a design challenge? Enter Erik Nitsche (1908-1998), a Swiss-born graphic designer who studied at the Collège Classique in Switzerland and the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich before immigrating to the United States in 1934.
