Emmett McBain: Black is Beautiful
Today we’re sharing some of the work by designer Emmett McBain, whose graphic design work is legendary for its centring of Black people and Black culture. Indeed, his work has been described as “art direction as social equity.”.
Born in Chicago in 1935, McBain cut his teeth straight out of education as an advertising designer at Vince Cullers and Associates, which was the first Black-owned and Black-focused advertising agency in the US. Vince Cullers himself, also an African American born in Chicago (in 1924), had dealt with years of job rejections due to racism before he was finally hired, in 1953, as a promotional art director for Ebony magazine (mentioned in our post on Johnson Publishing). During this time the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum: in 1954 racially segregated education was ruled unconstitutional, Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her bus in 1955 seat prompted the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had risen to national prominence. Vince Cullers and Associates became a type of training ground for new Black designers and advertising creatives looking for a way into the industry.
McBain spent a year working at Vince Cullers before joining Playboy Records as an assistant art director at the age of 22 and was subsequently promoted to the position of promotion art director within a year. During this time McBain was awarded Billboard’s Album Cover of the Week for his design for Playboy Jazz All Stars (pictured below), and quickly racked up a huge catalogue of album cover design for artists including Tony Martin, Max Roach and Sarah Vaughn, while setting up his own studio in the process (McBain Associates) - all by the age of 24.
McBain’s cover for Playboy Jazz All Stars
Various McBain designs for Playboy records
Mc Bain then took on the position of art supervisor at JW Thompson in Detroit where he was involved in the launch of the Ford Mustang, before returning to Vince Cullers in 1968. During this time, he had become increasingly involved in the push for greater diversity in the advertising world, taking on a training/advisory role for the new generation of creatives. McBain designed the seminal ‘Black is Beautiful’ advert for the agency. He also took on Vince Cullers’ first million dollar campaign; Newport menthol cigarettes with imagery targeted directly at a black audience. Then, in 1971, he co-founded Burrell McBain advertising with Tom Burrell (featured in a recent blog post here), where they went on to land contracts with Malboro, McDonald’s and Coca Cola, becoming the country’s largest Black-owned agency in the process.
McBain’s 1968 advert for Vince Cullers
McBain left Burrell McBain in 1974, going on to focus on his own art practice, open an art gallery and consultancy, The Black Eye, while focusing on design for nonprofits and publishing houses. In 1991 he organised a series of nationwide arts programmes, community projects and scholarships promoting African American voices, funded by Beefeater gin. Throughout his life, until his death in 2012, Emmett McBain championed Black culture and sought to promote and enrich the lives of Black people.
1971 advert for Burrell McBain
McBain-designed campaign for Marlboro, Burrell McBain
