"If you know yourself, you are doomed." 
- Alexey Brodovitch

Alexey Brodovitch was born in Russia in 1898 into an aristocratic and wealthy family. In the early 1900s he worked in Paris and the United States as both a designer and photographer. He then worked his way to editor for the magazine Harper’s Bazaar. Brodovitch, as the major contributor to contemporary magazine design, was honored as a pioneer in graphic design. He created unique, meaningful images using avant-garde photography, typography and illustration. Differentiating Harper's Bazaar from other magazines, he became the first art director to use image and text together. He was known for his use of white space, modernization of Bazaar's iconic Didot logo, cinematic quality and obsessive cropping brought a key change to layouts. He is now considered to be one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century.

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In the 1920’s Brodovitch introduced European modernism to the United States by selling both his own work as well as other European artists such as Salvador Dali. His influence was spread in many ways. The passion he had for teaching produced a generation of designers following his visual energy and immediacy. He also explored photography, advancing an expressionistic approach, which would become the prevailing photographic style of the 50s.