Educator, designer, and commerical artist Albert Erling Dahn was born to Swedish immigrant parents in Illinois on January 27, 1907. The family relocated to San Francisco in 1915. Dahn attended the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Art and Design - then called the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Rhythmo-Chromatic Design - when the school first opened in 1924. He would eventually take up teaching and remain as a professor for twenty years. He died on November 27, 1970.