Bradbury Thompson was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1911 and studied at Washburn College before moving to New York. Between 1939 and 1962 he designed Westvaco Inspirations for Printers, a promotional publication for the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. He produced around 60 issues that are among the most inventive works of American graphic design of the mid-twentieth century.
Working with a limited budget and only process colours, Thompson developed techniques for using existing printed material such as comic books, nineteenth-century engravings and magazine photographs in new typographic contexts. Each issue was an experiment in what print could do.
He also designed over 90 stamps for the United States Postal Service and taught at Yale for 30 years.
