Joe Erceg
Updated: 4 days ago
1933 - 2018
For over six decades, Joe Erceg steadfastly worked as a designer in Portland. Unassuming and with an austere design philosophy, he gently shaped the graphic landscape with his work for brands like Lloyd Center, Murdock Charitable Trust, PCVA (Portland Center for the Visual Arts) and Columbia Sportswear. His longest collaboration was with University of Portland, his first alma mater. Joe—later with his son, Matt Erceg—elevated the pages of the highly-acclaimed alumni magazine for 31 years.
Joe found his lifelong passion for design at the Museum Art School, under the tutelage of premiere designer, Doug Lynch. After college, Doug asked young Joe if he wanted to become an apprentice at Artwork Associates. Joe remembered thinking he had hit it big making a whole 85 cents an hour! Artwork Associates was the primo art studio in town in 1955., when Joe started. He learned to draw “exquisite lines” with a ruling pen and became known for his clean, mechanical paste-ups. Joe took lettering classes from Irwin McFadden, a designer and Constructivist painter who was in tune with European trends like Swiss Modernism. Joe was a quick study and along with Irwin and his wife Ellen McFadden, he was among the first to implement modern design practices.
Joe joined Studio 1030, the most influential design studio of the 1960s in Portland. Studio 1030 ran as a collective with artists like Bennet Norrbo, Richard Wiley and Charles Politz all renting a desk and collaborating on projects.
Like other designers of his generation, Joe was reluctant to embrace the computer. Luckily he had a secret weapon others designers didn’t, his son Matt. In the latter part of Joe’s career, Matt Erceg would compose final computer layouts based on Joe’s precise specifications. Joe said, ”I would design on a dry board, do my sketches, I count the type, I figure out what I need, and then I turn it over to my son and he executes it on the computer.”
The father-son duo had a studio in Old Town’s Merchant Hotel Building from 1970 until Joe’s retirement in 2016. One of Joe's most iconic works was a large butterfly mural in the pointillist style which graced the back wall of the Fleischner-Mayer building from 1976 to 2000.
Joe was one of the first people interviewed for this project, and he spoke at the 2014 Design Week event, Designers of the Mad Men Era (Download transcript) about his experience in the early years of his career.
Arts & Culture Collection: Joe Erceg
All work in this collection courtesy of Matt Erceg, with scanning made possible by PSU grant.
Slides 1-8: Joe Erceg's designs for promotional posters for the Portland Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA) in the 1970s and 1980s.
Slide 9: Poster for Gallery West group show from 1978.
Slide 10: Poster for Northwest Portland Art Festival, year unknown.
Slide 11: 1977 poster for ArtQuake, an outdoor arts festival that started in Portland in 1997 and ran through 1995.
Slide 12: Northwest Film & Video Festival, put on by the Northwest Fill Study Center, 1980.
Source for this collection: Matt Erceg, with scanning made possible by PSU grant.
Assorted Client Work Collection Courtesy of Matt Erceg
Slide 1: Portland Council, World Without War poster. World Without War Councils were established in in the 1960s to "seek alternatives to organization for war."
Slide 2: Lewis & Clark brochure.
Slide 3: Ski Multorpor Mountain poster for SkiBowl.
Slide 4: Pacifico motorcycle parts poster.
Slide 5-6: Louisiana-Pacific Invitational poster from 1981 & 1982 at Memorial Coliseum. The '81 poster says, "If you’re not going to Wimbledon in 1981, then we’ll bring it to you here." Source for the 1981 poster is The Smithsonian Record ID chndm_1981-29-288.
Slide 7: Inaugural TriMet Light Rail Poster 1986.
Slides 1-4 Posters for Lloyd Center by Joe Erceg with illustration by Art Farm, 1980-1984.
Slides 5-6 Posters by Joe Erceg for an "Expressions of Heritage" Art Exhibit and Performance at Lloyd Center in the 1980s.
All work in this collection by Joe Erceg. Source for this collection: Matt Erceg unless otherwise noted, with scanning made possible by PSU grant.
Photos
Joe and his son Matt Erceg in 2014 after an interview.
Butterfly Mural
Entry published in a DCI collateral piece. A "Politzer Prize" is presumedly one that is named by designer Charles Politz.
The pointillism-style butterfly designed by Joe Erceg started out as a poster, but gradually morphed into this mural in 1976. Commissioned by Bill Naito for the north wall of the Fleischner-Mayer Building, it lived there for 30 years!
Joe's promotional sheets from Studio 1030.
Article in Step-by-Step magazine about Joe Erceg, 1986.
If you have more to add to this entry, or a recommendation on who we should feature on Portland Design History, please reach out to: melissa@meldel.com.
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