Philip Meggs, 60; Graphic Design Guru

Philip B. Meggs, who wrote the first definitive history of graphic and advertising design from the beginning of the written language through the printing press and on to the computer, has died. He was 60.

Meggs died of leukemia Nov. 24 in Richmond, Va.

A graphic designer for commercial industry and then a college instructor and dean, Meggs said he wrote because of his need to give his students a foundation for all that had gone before. The result was “A History of Graphic Design,” published in 1983 and still the definitive book on the subject.

Meggs wrote about a dozen other books and about 150 articles and papers on design and typography.

Since 1993, he had served on the U.S. Postal Service’s Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee. In 1996, he was credited with bringing about the selection of the Christmas stamp featuring Madonna and Child from a 1712 oil painting “The Adoration of the Shepherds” in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. To make the selection work, Meggs countered committee opposition by projecting the painting on a wall and cropping it carefully to emphasize the two small figures.

Meggs also attracted public attention for his criticism of the recent redesign of U.S. currency. “The new bills are atrocious: 1928 designs based on 19th century models,” he said in 1998 as the bills emerged with enlarged portraits of presidents and denomination numbers. “They’ve shown a timid slavery to tradition.... They missed an opportunity to take a 120-year leap forward.”

After the first redesigned bill -- the $100 with Benjamin Franklin -- appeared in 1996, Meggs was so incensed that he assigned his Virginia Commonwealth University design students to come up with their own versions of a $1 bill. Heeding Meggs’ warning that “we will enter the 21st century with 19th century money in our pockets,” they submitted designs incorporating elements ranging from colorful abstract art to bald eagles, from Native Americans to cartoon figures such as Captain America.

The winner, chosen by student vote, was a five-color bill with peace doves sketched in flight and computer-generated text. Several of the student designs were presented to -- and ignored by -- the Treasury Department.

Meggs, a native of Newberry, S.C., attended the University of South Carolina and then earned his bachelor’s and master’s of fine arts degrees at what is now Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

After working for Reynolds Aluminum and A.H. Robins Pharmaceuticals as a graphic designer and art director, he began teaching at his alma mater in 1968. He was dean of its department of communication arts and design from 1974 to 1987. He was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts grant, which allowed him to lecture at several universities.

Earlier this year, Meggs selected the graphics for a well-received exhibition, “U.S. Design 1975-2000,” organized by the Denver Art Museum and also shown in Miami, New York and Memphis. Last month, he was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame at ceremonies in New York.

Meggs’ own graphic design, teaching and writing were inextricably intertwined.

“My involvement in writing is an extension of my activity as a graphic designer and design educator,” he told the anthology Contemporary Authors. “My study of design history led to the development of a university course in the history of visual communications and graphic design. My research was compiled into the book ‘A History of Graphic Design.’ ”

The book, he explained, “traces man’s visual communications from early writing to contemporary graphic design. The invention of the alphabet, the origin of printing, Renaissance book design, Victorian and Art Nouveau graphics of the industrial revolution, and the explosion of graphic communications on the 20th century -- propaganda, advertising, Art Deco and the impact of modern art.”

He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Libby; a son, Andrew of Tustin; a daughter, Elizabeth of Richmond; his parents; two brothers; and a sister.