Honoring the unseen in Chicago’s design history.

In 2018, the Society of Typographic Arts launched Chicago Characters: A Brief & Incomplete History of Design in Chicago, to honor historic local designers through type.

For our contribution honoring the late great Herb Temple, we initially took inspiration from Temple’s August 1972 Ebony cover “The Black Male.” But something in us said to pivot. 

We found it more powerful—more truthful—to shed light on his legacy by recognizing how often it’s overlooked in an industry that, to this day, lacks African American representation. 

The result is T is for Herb Temple: a blank poster that captures attention through what’s missing, rather than what’s there.