Thomas H. Geismar was born on July 15, 1931, in
Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Geismar studied concurrently at the
Rhode Island School of Design and
Brown University. He received a master's degree in graphic design from
Yale University, School of Art and Architecture where he studied under Josef Albers. After school, he joined the army for two years. Geismar met
Ivan Chermayeff at Yale and in 1957, they founded the firm Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar (now
Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv) along with
Robert Brownjohn. Geismar has designed more than a hundred
corporate identity programs and established abstract corporate symbols. The unifying element in his work is the repetition of symbols which gives new life to the form. His designs for
Xerox,
Chase Manhattan Bank,
Best Products, Gemini Consulting,
PBS,
Univision,
Rockefeller Center and, most notably,
Mobil (1964) have received worldwide acclaim. Geismar has also had major responsibility for many of the firm's exhibition designs and world's fair pavilions. His projects include such major tourist attractions as the
Ellis Island Immigration Museum, the
Statue of Liberty Museum, the
Truman Presidential Library, and the redesigned
Star-Spangled Banner exhibition at the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History. He has received major awards in the field, including one of the first Presidential Design Awards for helping to establish a national system of standardized transportation symbols. In 1998, he was inducted into the
Art Directors Club Hall of Fame. In 2014, he was awarded the
National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement along with Chermayeff and the
School of Visual Arts’ 26th Masters Series Award recipient. ==Books==