My Favorite Designer

Velasco 1

My Favorite Designer:

Paula Scher

Professor Erdeljon

Alejandra Velasco

October 3rd 2014

Graphic Design Studio I Velasco 2

Paula Scher is a world renowned artist and today her work is recognized as some of the most influential designs for graphic designers. Scher was born in 1948 in Virginia growing up primarily in Philadelphia and Washington DC.1 In 1966, during the height of the 60s and the

Vietnam War, she went to college at the Tyler School of Art for illustration and painting. Scher says “I went to college thinking I was going to be a painter, but I couldn’t really draw, so I tried other things. I couldn’t throw pots; but then in my junior year, I discovered graphic design.” 2

From then on once she graduated she went on to find her passion and discover what she was meant to do in the real world.

1 John Walters 2010. "Reputations: Paula Scher." Eye (20, no. 77: 46-57.

2 Interview of Paula Scher by Ruan and Tina Essmaker Velasco 3

Paula Scher has been designing for 4 decades now and has influenced the field in ways she could have never imagined she would within each decade and what she would learn. Scher could be recognized with some influential designs starting out in the 1970’s. The boom of music in the 70’s was very important for the time period. The music varied from a lot of Jazz to a huge focus on Rock and Roll as well. The demand for musical designs also created a demand for illustrations within the creative spectrum. The 70’s were the “Golden days of illustration.” 3

Scher was in charge of the original Boston album cover that ended up selling over six million copies in 1976. Although Scher, as Art Director of the project, did not like the concept at all, she had to work with the producers and the band to find something that they in the end liked. The design process was long and required a lot of editing but in the end they took a more scientific approach to their design by utilizing a spaceship in the particular way that it would represent a guitar.4 This album cover was popularly known through the hit of the band that year and Scher was known for her involvement with this record in her later search for more projects. After working on some rock albums, Jazz was also very prominent within the realm of music. One of the famous covers Scher worked on was with illustrator David Wilcox for the music cover for

Eric Gale’s Ginseng Woman album. This album was nominated for a Grammy award in 1978 even though shortly after the cover image started some public controversy with the National

Organization for Women Protesting Violence to Women. Scher described this encounter rather humorous when she thought to answer the writer of the letter describing their issue with the cover by saying that the cover offending women was designed by a woman.5 She went to state that it was all up to personal interpretation and there was a huge difference between a photograph

3 Paula Scher. Make It Bigger. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2002 pg. 16

5 Ibid. Pg.18 Velasco 4 and a representation through illustration. From then on into the 80’s designers had to watch out and take into consideration the fact that they could be offending someone and that was feared by

designers and firms that it started to limit the illustrative

portion of designs. During the 70’s she ventured from

illustrations for famous musicians, to creating albums with

photography, and

eventually by the end

of the 70’s

“typography started to overwhelm the illustrations” Scher purchased for her covers.6

Typography at the time was said to be used for repackages or when the company didn’t want to spend any money, the album was said to be making low sales, or there just want any time.

6 Velasco 5

In the early 1980’s as technology was advancing the album covers were getting smaller and smaller to design on due to the advancement of the compact disks. One of the most prominent designs Scher began working on was for the record “The Best of Jazz” which was a compilation of 30 jazz artists and she took a very poster look to it and focused on using typography as the main graphic. She created the album cover as well as another series of posters where she began to be labeled as a postmodern designer. Postmodernism had been around since the 1960’s but there is no real time where the movement began. Postmodernism can be defined or referred to as a layered, complex style or a postconstructuralist critical approach to design.

Design programs like Illustrator and Photoshop were out at the time and being used by designers, but by the late 80’s the design industry were rapidly growing and desktop publishing was also introduced in the field.7 In 1984 Scher was working on the branding for the marketing director for Swatch Watch USA. The swatch campaign was introduced with its funny use of the typical

American family with the intent to show that after purchasing the swatch watch it made their lives so much better. The design relied on a tie back to the typical 1950’s family but as the company became popular and they decided to revamp their design it changed significantly. The second go around was made as a parody to the Swiss international business building with the permission to use the work from the AIGA in using another artists work in their spoof. The repositioned some aspects of the design but for the most part it was a modernized version of the original with the addition of the swatch watch advertising.8 Another project she worked on was a book consisting in a selected 20 odd fonts that laid our their whole alphabet designed in a particular way as she found the interesting fornts. Her work from here on develpoed a unique use

8 Paula Scher. Make It Bigger. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2002 pg. 97 Velasco 6 of typography that had not been explored before. In 1990

Caroline Hightower, The director of the American Institute of

Graphic Design asked Scher to design a cover for their coming annual. The annual became a sort of spoof as well to the graphic design world because of being typeset it was painted and had drawn. The design was rather simple in the way that the AIGA was mentioned on there but the

background consisted on stating all of the states in the U.S. and their

percentage of using Helvetica, her least favorite typeface. The main

element was an eye with eye lasher created out of all the aspirations

designers seek. The personalized painting was a creative

breakthrough for Scher from then on with various renditions of her

map paintings.9

From then on as Scher went along she joined a new firm and began taking a different look on her designs and her way of handling her clients. In the 1990s there was an opportunity to work on the Public Theater image and Scher was in charge. The desire for entertainment in the theater was in demand and her designs were to call to attention the art within the theater. Bring Da Noise Bring in the Funk was the most successful typographic design for the public theater and brought a lot of traffic to the theater. This type of typographical design approach had never been explored before and this gave a brand new meaning to theater advertising.10 Designers began to catch very quickly and other designers began using it in their

9 Ibid. Pg. 130

10 Heller, Steve. 1996. "Street theater." Print 50, no. 3: 29. Velasco 7 own work. She worked on the Public theater for as long as she could but stepped down to take more opportunities. Scher then went to designing the logo for Citi bank after Travelers group and Citicorp merged. The design took elements from both logos and incorporated them into one cleaner and more modern design. Heading towards the

2000’s Scher began to work a bit closer to the architects on projects related to building structures. A major project was the New Jersey

Preforming Arts Center. Scher had a very limited budget and made sure her design would be able to adjust to just painting and renovating the building. She came up with various ideas but the client and she both felt more comfortable with a typographic approach. This allowed her creation with the type to stand out as well as allow the budget to fit in the frame. 11

Schers first staff design job once she was out of school was working at CBS records in the Advertising department. She had one of the lowest positions in the firm and had many approvals to go through in a short amount of time if she wanted her designs published. Her work here started off as very formulaic in the way that she had to design with certain traditional ways and if she tried to step over the boundaries her work was often handed back as it was not approved and she had to make changes to something safer. After 2 years of working for CBS Scher found herself wanting more out of her job and wanting to step out and

“break record advertising conventions” but was unable to do this at CBS because the president of

11 Anna Saccani. LetterScapes :A Global Survey of Typographic Installations. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013. Pg. 226 Velasco 8 the company was conventional and it was hard to create anything innovative.12 Schers next job was working for Atlantic Records as a designer for ads and covers. Here she worked for art directors and creative directors as well as recording artists and the main focus seemed to be the appeal to the client. Scher learns throughout a year at Atlantic records about what her approach to her personality was when it came to meeting with clients and how she would utilize her strengths. At Atlantic records she produced 25 different successful album covers but shortly after a year she was offered a job back at CBS records as an art director where she would be producing and overseeing about 150 albums a year.13 Working back at CBS is where Scher began to notice the differences in working for a small company versus working for a larger corporation.

Her time here was where she began an identity focused on her typography. At the time when she started typographical designs were cheaper and quicker to make as well as how appealing they were to the clients, especially in the music field as they wanted logos created and type that emitted some kind of feeling towards their work. This became related to her style in the postmodern art movement. Scher in 1982 left CBS records and she began freelancing where she found herself designing for two magazines. These magazines focused on the design aspect as a way to educate the viewers of something or to get them to crave and desire whatever the magazine is advertising. From there she worked with several other magazine editorials, advertising agents, and other design related businesses working with entrepreneur that create products and their look. While Scher was having this time to freelance she began working on a similar project with Terry Koppel, which she had actually gone to school with at the Tyler

School of Art. Soon enough the conjured up the idea of starting their own design studio and they did it. The promoted themselves by mailing out small books with samples of their work with 12 Paula Scher. Make It Bigger. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2002 pg. 11

13 Ibid. pg. 14 Velasco 9

other clients. Their studio was named Great Beginnings and they

received calls shortly after of potentially interested clients. They

focused and sold themselves as a type focused studio which later became popular with a small book of their samples they created. 14 They ended up designing the identity for Manhattan records and many other companies. They designed all things form company identities to album covers to book cover and even packaging for different products.

Koppel and Scher suffered a recession of 1990 and Scher ended up joining Pentagram in the spring of 1991. The structure of the design firm Pentagram was unique in the way that it was a group of “small businesses linked together financially through necessary services and through mutual interests. The design process involved every one of all positions to be hands on and it was very group work based. The graphic designers were able to collectively feed off the architects and vice versa. Here Scher learned the importance of working with a group, design exploration process, and the idea of focus testing on designs. 15 Paula Scher continues to be a huge influence to the design world after Pentagram and into today. Paula has worked with environmental organizations and many more invested partners have sought to utilize her unique design style.

Scher has even developed the logo and reimaging the look that windows 8 came out with.16

Paula Scher described her look on design by saying “I’ve always been what you would call a pop designer. I wanted to make things that the public could relate to and understand, while raising expectations about what the mainstream can be”17 Through every job Scher has had she

15 Ibid. Pg.160

16 Hachman, Mark. 2012. "Microsoft Unveils Bland, Blue Windows 8 Logo." PC Magazine 1.

17 Helen Armstrong. Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field. 1st Ed. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2009.Pg.88 Velasco 10 realized that every firm had a sort of structure or way if creating designs that was not innovative but instead a bit of a road block with creativity and she developed her thoughts on how designs deserve to be intelligent and solve a problem in that way.18 Scher has worked with everything from making or directing illustration, to designing typography, painting maps, and working with other 3d objects and much more that now creates the background of graphic design.19 Scher’s perspective on the way of intelligent design made a difference for her clients as well as her design decisions especially when it came to her ability to work with typography and brought intelligent design into the light20. Her unique way of working with type and not sticking to the bare minimums or the restrictions she was originally given has allowed her to raise the level of her designs that had not been seen before.

Schers influence to her designs was everything from client experience, job experience, and influence from her friends and famous designer husband Seymour. Scher worked with all types of clients that helped her understand that everyone was different and her ability to explain a design was very important. She was influenced not only by the time periods but what the clients thought that they needed. Scher gave them various ideas and continued her work. The ability to work on projects with other types of artists (architects) was also a great influence on her design method and her going outside of the box.21 Scher has been able to developed identities,

“packaging for a broad range of clients that includes, among others, The New York Times

Magazine, Perry Ellis, Bloomberg, Target, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Detroit Symphony

18 Interview of Paula Scher by Ruan and Tina Essmaker

19 Johnson, Ken. New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) [New York, N.Y] 09 Dec 2005: 30

20 Biography by Ellen Lupton for the ADC Hall of Fame

21Biography of Paula Scher by AIGA. Velasco 11

Orchestra, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the New 42nd Street, the New York

Botanical Garden, and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.”22

Paula Scher has forever changed the field of design from her innovative creations and thinking outside of the box with typography to any concepts and the design process thoughts.

“Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; the Library of Congress, Washington,

D.C.; the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich; the Denver Art Museum; and the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.”23 In 1998 Scher was named to the

Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and in 2000 she received the prestigious Chrysler Award for

Innovation in Design. 24 As one of the most famous designers still alive, Scher continues to grow with the technology and is able to influence designers today and for the future.

22 Biography of Paula Scher by AIGA.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid. Velasco 12

Annotated Bibliography

Media articles about the designer:

Walters, John L. 2010. "Reputations: Paula Scher." Eye (0960779X) 20, no. 77: 46-57.

Eye Magazine writer John Walter dives into the life of Paula Scher and interviews her

about her life and how she has managed so much success. Paula talks about her child

hood as well as the encounters she has had in her field of work. She jokes about her

artistic nature coming out when she was young and how she really didn’t know she was

going to be a Graphic Designer until her junior year in college. She also goes on to talk

about her life and the projects she has recently worked on.

Coggins, David. 2006. "Paula Scher at Maya Stendhal." Art in America 94, no. 4: 156.

David Coggins writes about his encounter with Paula Scher in the magazine Art in

America as they divulge into her inspiration for her maps and how that came to be. He

talks about the size and level of detail that Scher has when she is making these maps. A

key point the mention is Schers drive to paint maps and how that became influenced by

the fact that her father had been an art enthusiast and actually created a better lens to take

pictures and he us to work with maps as well and this is her inspiration for focusing on

maps with the use of her own typography.

Johnson, Ken. New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) [New York, N.Y] 09 Dec 2005: 30.

Ken Johnson in the New York Times talks to Paula Scher and her involvement with the

different firms she has worked for. He extracts moments in her career where she has

encountered different problems within her realm of creativity. He also mentions her

involvement with Pentagram Studios and her influence there. Velasco 13

Books:

Graphic Design Theory: Readings from The Field /edited by Helen Armstrong. 1st Ed. New

York: Princeton Architectural Press, c2009. This Book consists of many famous graphic

designers that have influenced the field up to recent times. Each artist is labeled with

some sort of lesson that graphic designers have developed from working and

experiencing their line of work. The book is full of visuals and excerpts of quotes from

the designers themselves allowing their unique characteristics to come across.

LetterScapes: A Global Survey of Typographic Installations /Anna Saccani. London: Thames &

Hudson, 2013. This book is divided into sections by different artists and it focuses on a

particular famous design that has changes the view of design. In regards to Paula the

book focuses on her work with the Public Theater and how she changes the world of

advertising for theaters. At the end the book also provides an area where some important

words are defined in order to help the reader better understand concepts.

Make It Bigger /Paula Scher. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, c2002.

This is a Book written by Paula Scher herself as the readers are submerged into her

thoughts and her experiences with inside information that not everyone may know. This

book outlines famous designs she has worked for as well as many clients she has worked

for within each firm or freelance job she has obtained. She mentions her likes and dislikes

as well as gives advice to designers that may be reading the book. Her book is full of

stories and description of her design life and how she dealt with each obstacle in her way

from achieving what she wanted. Velasco 14

The Book of Books: 500 Years of Graphic Innovation /edited by Mathieu Lommen. London:

Thames & Hudson, 2012.This book outlines the span of 500 years’ worth of designers

and their work throughout their lives. This book outlines how each individual and their

works changed the perspective of designers as well as how the public saw them. Paula

Scher is noted as one of the influential artists in graphic design,

Major professional journal articles:

Hachman, Mark. 2012. "Microsoft Unveils Bland, Blue Windows 8 Logo." PC Magazine 1.

One of the most esteemed journals when it comes to technology with computers and their

design concepts is PC Magazine. This Journal article goes into depth with the new logo

for the Windows 8 update and the designer Paula Scher. The article goes into depth with

the design process and why Scher made the decisions to make the logo that way.

Heller, Steve. 1996. "Street theater." Print 50, no. 3: 29.

Specialized database:

Oxford Art Online

This specialized data base searches the Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of

Artists, as well as the Oxford art reference resources. This data base allows to provide

information about the designer themselves with a brief biography as well as showing

some of their relevant works. Searching 3 different places becomes a good source of

information and the information is categorized by the type of information it contains.

Photographs: All taken from Google allowed images for educational purposes.

Legitimate websites: Velasco 15

Biography of Paula Scher by AIGA. http://www.aiga.org/medalist-paulascher/

This website is funded by the AIGA and provides information about renowned artists

they have acknowledges. Within those chosen Paula Scher received the highest medal the

AIGA can give and they go into some details of what makes Scher such an inspirational

designer when it comes to the field. The website talks about prestigious awards and

works through her lifetime of when she was awarded.

Interview of Paula Scher by Ruan and Tina Essmaker.

https://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/paula-scher This is an overview of an interview

done for Paula Scher were she goes into some personal thought about her past work as

well as her present work. We see the interview unfold with stories and personal advice

within the design field. Scher talks about everything that influenced her in her life as well

as her encounter with her husband which is also a very famous designer.

Biography by Ellen Lupton for the ADC Hall of Fame. http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/paula-

scher/ This is a biography website on Paula Scher due to another one of her prestigious

awards she has won and the ADC Hall Of Fame is recognizing her life as an artist. The

website goes into the lifespan of the artist and her greatest achievements.

Pentagram Partner: Paula Scher. http://www.pentagram.com/partners/#/19/

This website is for Pentagram Studios but within their partners page they have a brief

biography of Paula Scher and what makes her a unique partner to the firm. They show

many of her accomplishments throughout her life and pic specific moments in her career

that make her stand out as a designer. Velasco 16

Designboom. Paula Scher Interview http://www.designboom.com/design/paula-scher-interview/

This was another interview done with Paula Scher as she shares her insight of her work to

the editor of the article on Designboom. She goes on to talk about her style and

inspirations of her work as well as what drives her. The website provides visuals and

other works by the artist as well.