Lucien De Roeck

De Roeck received in 1960 an honorary badge as knight for the realization and success of Expo 58 from the Order of Leopold II. In 1966 he got one from the Order of Leopold.

In the 1960s the International Typographic Style advanced and from 1980 the digital revolution took off. This all didn't have much grip on De Roeck. He renewed himself but remained true to his own style.

Because De Roeck had a great fondness for architecture, he worked with high precision. This was convenient when designing plans, decors and scale models. De Roeck worked in 1959 on a mobile panorama sight of Brussels in perspective and relief, commissioned by the Commissariat of Tourism. He painted large pieces of fabric with the images of Brussels buildings.

De Roeck experienced the peak of his career during the 1950s. In 1954 he won the design competition for the poster of the World Fair of 1958. He used an asymmetrical star in the center of the design, combined with a globe in the right upper corner. The star has the city hall of Brussels in the middle. The five points stand for the visitors of the 5 continents Brussels would welcome, as well as the number of decennia Congo was a colony of Belgium. The typography exists of ‘Brussels’ and ‘58’ and the colors used are blue and green which suggest heaven and earth.

De Roeck became in 1946 a staff member of the Book Museum in Brussels. He organized exhibitions about typography and book printing. In 1969 he became a member of ATypI and in 1958 he took part for the first time in the L’association des Rencontres internationales de Lure.

After the Second World War ended, the press got its freedom back. This resulted in the flourishing of the Belgian press. From 1944 De Roeck designed for La Lanterne. He provided a revival of Le Phare with his talents as typographer and illustrator and launched their new Sunday magazine. He also designed for La Cité and Le Quotidian. For the paper Pan he reviewed theatre plays in images. The narration would adapt to the overall feel of the plays.

In 1941 there was a lawsuit in which De Roeck was accused of the illicit use of the font Peignot designed by Cassandre in his poster for an international dance contest. This incident made Lucien focus more on the specialization of letter shapes. He had already developed a strong affinity for type design in the 1930s. Specialization would guarantee De Roeck security and avoid future similar incidents.

In 1941 De Roeck pursued teaching which turned out to be his second nature after drawing. He started teaching typography at La Cambre. Later in Ecole des Filles de Marie (later Sint-Lucas paviljoen and now Karel de Grote-Hogeschool) in Antwerp, the provincial college in Saint-Ghislain and evening schools and Brussels as well. It wasn't until 1980 that De Roeck decided to retire. After his retirement he spent an extra year at La Cambre to do an unpaid internship in teaching. Students of his are amongst others Pierre Alechinsky, Michel Olyff and Jean-Michel Folon.

Lucien De Roeck married in 1941 to Adrienne van Emden. She studied at La Cambre as well and had a degree in weaving. His daughter Anne and his son Michel were born in 1944 and 1945. As a family they moved a few times, but stayed within the city of Elsene.

During the Battle of the Lys, De Roeck kept an autobiographical sketchbook. He fought back with drawings. These are a series of cubist drawings with elements such as soldiers, airplanes and explosions which summed up what he had experienced. Afterwards he was taken to a German detention camp and was freed end 1940.

In 1939 De Roeck decided to take a course in calligraphy at the London Royal College of Art. This ended abruptly. He was called for duty in May 1940 to fight the Battle of the Lys.

The first big assignment he had after his studies and military service, was in 1937 by Yves Denis, the director of the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels. De Roeck was asked to do the lay-out of their newspaper they published every month, the Journal des Beaux-Arts.

De Roeck had a strong affinity for architecture, but due to limited financial possibilities he chose to study the shorter program Advertising Design. This separate program was exclusive at La Cambre, it wasn't taught at Bauhaus. He had the atelier Advertising Design by Joris Minne. Nand Geersen instructed the course Book Design. He graduated with great honors in 1935 and thought this grade was too high, which showed his great modesty.

After serving his military service in 1935 he took an extra year to experiment with typography at La Cambre as well.

In 1935, De Roeck and his fellow students were asked by the mayor of Antwerp Camille Huysmans to design a poster which would serve as an advertisement for Antwerp. For sketching he went back to his beloved Scheldt to draw the small boats and huge ships. The iconography and composition of the final poster had influences from A.M Cassandre and Leo Marfurt. De Roeck won the assignment and over 10.000 copies were made. There was a second edition in 1936. After, a second design brief was assigned to the class. This time it was to promote the ferry connection Ostend-Dover. De Roeck wonoas the best design for this assignment.

At the age of 17, in 1932, De Roeck enrolled in La Cambre which is a notorious art school in Brussels. They had a very modernist way of teaching inspired by Bauhaus. His teachers of the evening classes had a liberal approach. This made De Roeck opt for the rather socialist and progressive La Cambre, unlike his traditional Flemish education in high school.

Lucien Theodore De Roeck (9 March 1915 – 5 March 2002) was a Belgian artist, type designer, typographer and graphic designer. He is best known for the design of Expo 58, the Brussels World's Fair in 1958.