After half a century of creating logos for Hawaii’s leading businesses, graphic design artist Clarence Lee, 79, succumbed to Parkinson’s disease Thursday under hospice care at Arcadia Retirement Residence.
Lee may be best known for his 12-year Chinese Lunar New Year stamp series commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service, which began in 1993 with the Year of the Rooster. He also designed a U.S. stamp for the Beijing Olympics.
Lee founded Clarence Lee Design & Associates in 1966 and sold it in 2005.
Lee’s company developed symbols and packaging that Hawaii residents recognize and use every day, including logos for Northwest Airlines, Hawaiian Electric Industries, Capital Investment, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Central Pacific Bank, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Hawai‘i Convention Center, Arcadia and Victoria Ward Center and graphics and packaging for Mauna Loa Macadamia Nuts, Royal Kona Coffee, Zippy’s and others.
Lee’s projects included annual reports for Hawaii’s largest banks (First Hawaiian Bank and Bancorp Hawaii), Hawaiian Electric Co., Barnwell Industries and Aloha United Way.
Lee grew up in McCully and Liliha and graduated from ‘Iolani School in 1953, according to his daughter Cathy Lee Chong.
He attended Pomona College and graduated from Yale University in 1958. He worked for the Lester Beall Design Group from 1959 to 1961 and was with IBM Corp. in New York from 1962 to 1965. Lee returned to Hawaii in 1966 to establish his design firm.
In a 2000 Star-Bulletin interview, Lee said his father, a McCully butcher, got him started on his career.
"It was that paper, those pink, waxy sheets, the butcher paper he’d bring home," Lee recalled.
Lee said he would spend his evenings drawing fighter planes, tanks and explosions on the butcher paper.
His mother noticed and enrolled him in a drawing class at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
"I think I was the only kid in McCully in an art class, so it was kind of embarrassing," Lee said. "But I discovered that art was something I really enjoyed doing."
At ‘Iolani, Lee said, the school didn’t offer art classes beyond eighth grade. But ‘Iolani art teacher Kathryn Bird noticed his passion for it and gave him a corner of her classroom to use until he graduated from high school.
"Without her I might be a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer like the other ‘Iolani graduates," Lee said in the 2000 news story.
A 2006 Honolulu magazine article said, "Lee has become one of our most iconic designers, having created hundreds of logos and packages that Hawaii residents see every day — everything from the safety sticker that decorates (almost) every car on the road to the colorful tubs that store Zippy’s chili. ‘You have to enter design with a passion and a love, let it permeate every part of your life,’ Lee says. ‘It’s a part of who we are as humans, in every culture of the world.’"
Chong said the project that brought her father the most recognition was the USPS Lunar New Year stamp series.
Lee was the recipient of numerous national and international awards and was featured in national publications such as CA, IDEA and Print magazines. He received the Hawaii Advertising Federation Silver Award for outstanding contributions to the advertising industry in 1987 and also was one of 128 designers in the U.S. to be invited to participate in the "Images of Survival" peace poster project, exhibited in Washington, D.C.; Hiroshima; and Moscow.
In 2001 Lee was named a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i by Honpa Hongwanji Mission and received the prestigious Koa Award from Koa Art Gallery for lifetime achievement in the arts. Both awards marked the first time that a graphic designer received such recognition.
The Honolulu Academy of Arts selected his design works for display in its annual "Artists of Hawaii" show. The Queen Emma Gallery honored him with a show in 1998 titled "Clarence Lee: A Lifetime in Design." In 2004 he was the Alfred Preis honoree for lifelong dedication to the arts and art education in Hawaii.
He is survived by wife Elsa Lee, daughter Cathy Lee Chong, son Douglas, stepdaughter Emily Carl Tom, sisters Helen Char and Rose Leong, brothers Kenneth and Clifford, and grandchildren Claire Mosteller, Jackie Mosteller, Kala Chong, Kale’ Chong and Logan Tom.
Services will held Feb. 15 at St. Alban’s Chapel at ‘Iolani School. Visitation will begin at 1 p.m. followed by services at 2 p.m.
