“Design is not just something you do on a piece of paper. Design is how you see, how you think, how you act. What you buy, what you own, what you surround yourself with. What you listen to, what you don’t listen to. What you watch, what you don’t watch. So design for me is a kind of way of life and perhaps a substitute for any kind of religion.”

Burton Kramer is a huge and influential force in the design community. He is a designer rich in accolades and achievements, ranging from a lifetime achievement award to having work in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian and Library of Congress. Most notably, in Canada as an ”advocate of fully integrated design at a time when such an approach was virtually unknown in Canada. As a functioning part of this advocacy, Kramer was one of Canada’s first graphic designers to courageously promote the use of Helvetica type, organizational grids, symbols, systems design and other visual manifestations of the “International style” in a Canadian design environment that was then steeped in a different tradition and often hostile to this radically new approach.” -burtonkrameridentities

This spring, a documentary produced by Greg Durrell will be releasing and will reveal an intimate look at a designer who I think will be (if not already) a staple in design history. The documentary will be a sort of extension of Mr. Kramer’s retrospective book, Burton Kramer Identities, which documents his prolific career spanning over fifty years as a leading designer, painter and educator in Canada. Currently Mr. Kramer practices as a painter, displaying regularly across the globe.

I think Mr. Kramer is part of a rare and passing breed of designers that are unfazed by the coming and going styles and trends, but have been trained and focused on making work that is first good and then timeless.