Designer for Westvaco Inspirations (1939-62)
Westvaco Inspirations was a promotional journal produced by the Westvaco Corporation, formerly known as the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. The purpose of the journal was to highlight the printing processes and quality of paper achieved by the Westvaco paper Mills. Bradbury Thompson (1911-1995) served as designer and editor for over fifty issues of this publication including the issue featured to the left. 

 

Art director of Mademoiselle magazine (1945–1959)
Mademoiselle was aimed at the new working girl
(like Glamour magazine and particularly Charm) post-war, emancipated
and newly worrying about how to conduct and dress herself in the
workplace. All well before the Mad Men years.
What a lovely piece of self-referential design this cover is. Minimum text, minimal colour palette and maximum design.

 

 

Design director of Art News and Art News Annual (1945–1972)
Founded in 1902, ARTnews is the oldest and most widely circulated
art magazine in the world.

 

 

Smithsonian Magazine 1969
1969, the Smithsonian Institution hired him to create the design for Smithsonian magazine, a classic format that has been maintained
for more than a quarter of a century.

 

Personal book: The Art of Graphic Design (Yale, 1988)
"This is not a book expounding theories of design in words; it is a book of practice, a visual demonstration of amazing versatility and typographic adventure. . . . I have always thought that just as few ever succeed in being both artist and designer, so even fewer succeed in both advertising and editorial design. But here is Bradbury Thompson, consummate in both. In the current phrase, this book shows supremely well what graphic design today is all about."—Ruari McLean, New York Times Book Review