Tuesday, November 1, 2011 People are always asking me: "How are
the birth of baby Jesus and the U.S. Navy connected with mid-
century graphic design in San Diego?" Well, the answer is
simple. Military and aerospace contractors like Convair were the
largest employers in San Diego during World War II. Towards the
end of the war, the Navy's small Radio and Sound Laboratory
began to work with scientists from the University of California
at Scripps Institution of Oceanography to research and develop
electronic equipment and systems for the Navy and this new
entity, called the Navy Electronics Laboratory (NEL), based in
Point Loma. In 1945, educator and proponent of contemporary art,
John Olsen, was in charge of visual development at NEL. He led a
team of teachers, scientists, writers and artists responsible
for illustrating and documenting the lab's projects. Their job
was to make this technical information easy to understand
through words and pictures. Just a few of the artists who worked
at NEL included Harry Ber