Profile

Legendre+Rutter is a design studio committed to creating graphic communication and art objects that are guided by the premise that the synergy between imagery and word should provoke “emotional thoughtfulness.” Lance Rutter and Yann Legendre have a combined 40 years of professional design experience, and the products of their work have included an incredibly wide range of communication solutions: from logos, illustrations, books, and posters to large scale branding initiatives, ground-breaking interactive experiences, and even products.

Lance Rutter and Yann Legendre together in their Chicago studio, Yann Legendre speaking to a group of designers at “Fresh Talent,” and Lance Rutter thanking the audience at AIGA Chicago’s Annual Members Meeting, 2007.

Yann Legendre

Yann Legendre was born in Orleans, France, opened his first independent design studio in Paris in 1997, and moved to Chicago in 2005. During his career, Legendre has developed a multiform visual approach to graphic design that he refers to as “Design Life,” a concept based on visual eclecticism and ethnographic awareness.

Legendre is laureate of many national and international competitions and has been featured in design periodicals and exhibitions around the world. He has presented design workshops at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at the U of I, Chicago, he has lectured to student and professional design audiences, and he has served as a juror for international design competitions.

Awards and recognition include an AIGA award for one of the best 50 Books / 50 Covers of the year in 2005, “Les Plus Beaux Livres Français,” awards of excellence from the Society of News Designers for his work with The New York Times in 2008, honorary mention in the 10th Biennial of the Poster in Mexico, 2008, among many others. Legendre is known internationally for his iconic posters, particularly for cultural and arts institutions, which have been exhibited in France, China, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Poland, Finland, Iran, Bolivia, United States, and Mexico He was raised under the influence of design thinking, as his father, Yves Legendre, is a well-respected interior architect in France.

Six book covers from a series of philosophy books designed for Inculte Publishing in Paris. The embossed letterform compositions represent the initials of names like Perec, Deleuze, and Joyce. The series was recognized with two prestigious design awards: Les Plus Beaux Livres Français and AIGA’s 50 Books / 50 Covers of 2005.

Lance Rutter

Lance Rutter has been a professional designer in Chicago since 1985. In 1992, he was a founding partner of the design firm, Tanagram, which he led as creative director for 16 years. Much of his work at Tanagram was interactive design and branding projects for large technology companies. In 2008, he decided on self-reinvention, and he and Yann opened Legendre+Rutter.

Over the years, Rutter’s work has been published in design magazines and books such as Communication Arts, Print, ID, STEP, and Graphis, among others. Over the past year, his posters have been exhibited in international competitions in Poland, Mexico, Japan, Hungary, China, the Slovak Republic, Bolivia and Iran. He has led design workshops, lectured, exhibited, and served as juror for many national and international design competitions. Rutter has taught undergraduate and graduate level graphic design courses, and he currently teaches brand/identity at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Corporate identities designed for Preferred Hotels & Resorts, Davidson Oil Company, Triple Tree Capital, and Trellis Healthcare.

Rutter has been active professionally through the Society of Typographic Arts (STA) and AIGA for many years, serving as AIGA Chicago President from 1999-2001, national board member and advisor, and program chair for many initiatives. Through AIGA, he helped establish the “Voter Experience Redesign Initiative” (VERI) in 2000, which became the national AIGA initiative, “Design for Democracy.”

In 2007, along with Legendre, and with the help and support of many in the Chicago design community, Rutter established the ICOGRADA-endorsed Chicago International Poster Biennial (www.chicagobiennial.org), a non-profit initiative dedicated to advancing the ideas of social understanding, visual literacy, and cultural diversity through design. The Chicago Biennial’s first major poster exhibitions took place in 2008, and the 2010 Second CIPB international poster competition drew 2,000 poster entries from 50 countries around the world.