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Renaissance Man Leroy Winbush

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    Leroy Winbush, also known as "Renaissance Man Leroy Winbush", is an African American Graphic Designer, known for being the first black member of the Art Directors Club of Chicago, and also the president of the organization five years later. He is best known for his solid career as a pioneering graphic designer despite having no formal design training. His path as a designer shattered racial barriers in the design community. He was one of very few working black designers in Chicago at the time, and worked his way up in the design field without a proper design background.

    Winbush was born on December 7th, 1915, in Memphis, Tennessee. At age five, Winbush moved with his father to Detroit, and at age fourteen he moved to Chicago to become a graphic designer. After graduating high school, Winbush had many jobs working as a designer. In 1936, he worked at a sign shop as an apprentice. In 1938, the Regal Theater hired him to design and paint the theater front. 



Leroy Winbush

In the 1940's, Winbush revolutionized the window displays of banks and earned a reputation as one of the country's top airbrush artists. He also worked as art director at Johnson Publishing Company for a decade, where he helped to create the first issue of Ebony. After achieving great success in multiple design areas, he then founded his own studio, Winbush Associates, in 1945.
Having a wide variety of skills, he was involved in many projects. Some of his works include:


Album Cover Designs for many African Music Artists


Design for Sickle Cell Anemia exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry,
one of the longest running permanent exhibits at the museum.


Branding materials for the Black Expo, at one time the largest 
gathering of black businessmen in history.

    What makes Winbush so important to design was his ability to break barriers. He was involved in a lot of high design positions without any formal design training, which was very uncommon for African American designers let along African-Americans at the time. For example, along with his status at the Art Directors Club of Chicago, he was also the director of design for the Illinois Sesquicentennial Celebration in 1967, the vice president of Our World Underwater (an annual seminar in Chicago), and a design consultant for the DuSable Museum of African-American History.

    Oustide of design, Winbush also became famous for scuba diving, qualifying for Lawson's 20 Fathom Club in 1966, and served as the club's president form 1968 to 1983. His contributions reach far beyond the field of design, for he was also known as a bowler and skier.

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