Alan Siegel

Alan Siegel (born August 26, 1938) is the CEO of Siegelvision, a brand identity consultancy. He is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of global brand strategy firm Siegel+Gale.

Alan Siegel was born to Eugene and Ruth Siegel in New York. He attended Long Beach High School where he played basketball under Robert Gersten. After high school, Siegel attended the Industrial Labor Relations School at Cornell University.

Upon graduating from Cornell, Siegel attended the New York University School of Law, but took a leave of absence in 1962 to accept an Army commission. Siegel trained at Fort Still, Oklahoma and was stationed with the 2nd Howitzer Battalion, 18th Artillery, in Butzbach, Germany.

After he returned from Germany, Siegel decided to leave NYU Law to pursue a career in communications. Throughout the 1960s, Siegel worked at a number of major communications firms, including BBDO, Ruder Finn, and Sandgren & Murtha. During this time he also met his wife, Gloria, with whom he has a daughter.

In 1969 Siegel and Robert Gale, a designer that Siegel worked with at Sandgren & Murtha, established their own agency, Siegel+Gale. Initially the agency drew in clients that were mostly interested in developing their visual identities. In 1974 Robert Gale sold his part of the agency. Over the years, Siegel+Gale grew from a logo and design focused company to pioneering the development of corporate voice and simplification. The firm's notable clients have included Dell, MasterCard, the NBA, Caterpillar, 3M, Xerox, American Express and The New School.

Throughout the 1970s, Siegel was the leading voice in the plain English movement that proposed simplifying complex financial and legal documents. In 1979, the Internal Revenue Service hired Siegel to transform existing tax forms, resulting in the 1040-EZ form. Siegel also worked on simplifying bank contracts and Census Bureau forms. Siegel's advocacy for simplicity has landed him on the Today show, The McNeil-Lehrer Report, CNN, CBS News, ABC News and in People magazine.

...
Wikipedia