Georg Olden (graphic designer)

Georg Olden
Born	George Elliott Olden November 13, 1920 Birmingham, Alabama
Died	February 25, 1975(1975-02-25) (aged 54) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Graphic designer, ad man

Georg Olden (November 13, 1920 – February 25, 1975) was an AIGA medal winning graphic designer who worked in television and advertising. A Japanese magazine, Idea, once listed him among the top fifteen designers in the United States.

George Elliott Olden was born in Birmingham, Alabama on November 13, 1920 as the grandson of a slave and the son of a Baptist preacher. In youth he attended Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., then Virginia State College, before dropping out shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor to work as a graphic designer for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the CIA.

During his time at the OSS, Olden worked for some of America's leading artists, designers and writers and made contacts that opened significant professional opportunities after the war. When the war ended in 1945, the head of the OSS communications division, Colonel Lawrence W. Lowman, who in civilian life became Vice President of CBS's television division, was searching for someone who "had a full grasp of the whole range of commercial-art techniques." He found Olden, and from a one-man operation involved with six programs a week, Olden eventually headed a staff of 14 in charge of 60 weekly shows. When he joined the network in 1945, there were 16,000 television sets in the entire nation. By the time he left the network in 1960, there were 85 million sets, one for every two Americans.

From 1945 to 1960, Olden worked with William Golden, art director for CBS, and as such was one of the first African-Americans to work in television. In 1960, he began to work in advertising and went on to design the Clio Award as well as receive seven of them. In 1960, he moved to BBDO as the TV group art supervisor. In 1963, he became the VP-senior art director at the major firm, McCann Erickson.

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