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George Elliott Olden (November 13, 1920 – February 25, 1975) was an American graphic designer who worked in television and advertising. Working at CBS, Olden helped to create the visual identities of shows such as Gunsmoke, I Love Lucy, and Lassie.
Mar 19, 2016 · The graphic designer George Elliot Olden, known for his work in television and advertising, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on November 13, 1920. Olden’s father, James Clarence Olden, was a Baptist minister, and his mother, Sylvia Ward Olden, was a music teacher.
Jun 30, 2020 · Georg Olden was an AIGA medal-winning graphic designer who worked in television and advertising. A Japanese magazine, Idea, once listed him among the top fifteen designers in the United States.
While working as a graphic designer for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, Olden worked for some of America's leading artists, designers and writers and made contacts that opened significant professional opportunities after the war.
As a young man, Georg Olden claimed not to want to focus on one art genre and was not interested in advertising, yet he became an expert in a single genre — graphic design — and a giant in the advertising industry.
Olden attended Dunbar High School in D.C. and nearby Virginia State College before dropping out shortly after Pearl Harbor to work as a graphic designer for the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA.
Became the first notable African American graphic designer. Before Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and Martin Luther King Jr. broke racial barriers, Georg Olden entered the traditionally white, male world of graphic design and became its first prominent African American practitioner.
