His trademark narrow black knit tie is loosened at the opened collar of his rumpled white shirt, the sleeves rolled up his forearms. PLAY SLIDESHOW The man who sits at this corner drawing board, engrossed in the music and his work, is Gene Lacy, the owner and principal designer of this graphic design studio. Beside the player a selection of records is stacked haphazardly, among them the works of Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Bela Bartok. A solid black slate table, littered with jars of rubber cement, Pentel pens, X-Acto knives and art and typography books, holds a wooden record player upon which spins the New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm LP. An iron framed butterfly chair with a black canvas cover sits at an angle across from this drawing board, inviting clients and visitors – artists, advertising executives and bank presidents alike - to recline within its spare frame. Torn from magazines and books, the ragged-edged scraps contain the words and photographs of John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway, the designs of Paul Rand, and, occasionally, a specimen of a favored Bodoni or Helvetica typeface. Above the drawing board are bits of paper stabbed to the wall with silver pushpins. At one drawing board, in a dimmer and more secluded corner of the studio, a cigarette burns to ash in an already overflowing ashtray while a stained paper cup of black coffee cools beside it. Around the studio, perched at drawing boards, are eight designers, illustrators and typographers creating the designs and illustrations that will soon become ads and logos for such corporations as Weimer Typesetting, American United Life Insurance Company (AUL) and Eli Lilly & Company. A magnificent string sculpture fills the wall of the reception area. Gauguin, Picasso and Mondrian prints cover the walls. Simple white linen curtains are pushed away from the room’s tall windows wide Venetian blinds have been pulled open to reveal the growing city below. Strains of Stan Kenton’s music fill a large, open studio on the ninth floor of the Merchants Bank building in downtown Indianapolis. Gene Lacy was given the State of Indiana’s highest honor, the Sagamore of the Wabash award, and Mawas named “Gene Lacy Day” in Indianapolis. The Lacys received many honors and awards for their work over their thirty-year careers. Their collective body of work was influential in introducing modern sensibilities to the local design scene. They both attended the John Herron Art Institute (now Herron School of Art and Design) in Indianapolis, where Gene was a faculty member and later chair of the visual communications department from 1961 to 1971. 1931–2010 Gene and Jackie Lacy were Indianapolis-based graphic designers and illustrators practicing from the 1950s through the 1980s.
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