Erik Heffer, born in Lund in 1909, died in Stockholm in 1995, grew up in southerly Eslöv until his family moved to the Stockholm suburb of Midsommarkransen. While doing his military service, Erik met an architecture student who saw his drawings and encouraged him to become an advertising illustrator. He didn’t even know that such a job existed, but he was curious, and after mustering out, he started looking around to see if it might be a way of realizing his dreams...Read more. At the time, there was no school for advertising illustrators in Sweden, so Erik trained in Paris and then went to work. His first job was at Esselte, where he designed packaging. Following brief stints at Svenska Telegrambyrån in Gothenburg and Åhlén & Åkerlund, he ended up at Svenska Telegrambyrån in Stockholm, where he stayed until he retired. Erik was in charge of the design studio, also mentoring up-and-coming talents. One of them was Ove Pihl (elected to the Platinum Academy in 1987, four years before his mentor). The work most associated with Erik Heffer, which still lives on in the Swedish language, is a poster produced to calm a jittery post-war labour market. There was enormous demand for labour, and many people switched jobs often, which was bad for the state and bad for capital. Erik minted the term “Hopp-Jerka” on a poster of a worker dressed as a grasshopper, hopping from factory to factory. Otherwise, he is best known for his travel posters for clients such as Svenska Lloyd, Swedish State Railways and Jämtlandsfjällen. Today, you can buy them at galleries. They are no longer considered advertising. They are considered art.

– J.N.