Paula Scher: American Graphic Designer and Typographer

PAULA SCHER American Graphic Designer and Typographer.

“DESIGN SOMETHING THAT CAN

1980

1976

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1999

BE ADAPTED TO ITS TIME.�

2016

PAULA

SCHER

2017

is an iconic American graphic designer, typographer, painter, author, and educator; who focuses on designing identity systems. She was born on October 6, 1948, and attended Tyler School of Arts in 1970 where she received her BFA. Paula currently resides in New York City with her husband Seymour Chwast, who is also a graphic designer and founder of PushPin Studios. Paula is a partner at Pentagram Design, the world’s largest independently-owned design studio. Pentagram is one of the most influential design studios across the globe.

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1976 “Ginseng Woman”

1976 “Boston” Studio album

1976 “Stravinsky” Leonard Bernstein

1978 “Touchdown” Bob James

1978 “Sunny Side Up” Wilbert Longmire

1979 “One on one” Bob James & Earl Klugh

1974 “Changes one” Charles Mingus

1975 “Common sense” John Prine

1974 “Changes two” Charles Mingus

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Towards

the beginning of her graphic design career, Paula worked at several record companies such as, CBS Records, Blue Sky Records, Tappan Zee Records, Manhattan Records, and Atlantic Records. While at CBS records, she created 150 album covers annually, and where her designs were recognized with four Grammy nominations. In 1976, she worked with the iconic band, Boston, on their studio album cover. It was released, and sold 6 million copies in less than one year. This became one of Paula’s most recognizable works of graphic design.

In 2017, Paula was featured in the Netflix Original series, Abstract: The Art of Design. In the documentary about Paula, she rants about how she loved doing typographic albums instead of illustrated or photographic based ones. She explained that the more famous bands and musicians had more say in what the album covers looked like, even though she was the designer, and many of them believed the ones with just typography on them were “cheap looking”.

Towards the end of designing album covers, Paula’s work became more typographic. Paula left CBS in the mid-nineties.

The Boston cover is dumb ... if nobody cared about the album I did typography, and thats what I liked doing most.

I was the artist, I was the one in control of what these things looked like.

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An earlier rendering of The Public Theaters word mark.

This concept lead to their final and current brand identity.

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of Paula’s largest ongoing projects, is designing and revising the brand identity and environmental graphics for The Public Theater in New York. In the Netflix original documentary, Paula speaks passionately about her 24 years of designing for The Public Theater, and describes it as if she “has a love affair” with their brand identity.

Paula designed a new identity, and promotional system for the theater in 1994, which she has since made revisions many times. When speaking about these revisions she explains that “you must design something that can be adapted to it’s time”. She has clearly has successfully done this, because The Public Theater’s brand rarely fails to impress no matter what year it is.

The Public Theater’s current word mark, designed by Paula Scher in 1994.

Identities are the beginning of everything.

They are how something is recognized and understood.

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Sketches and plans by Paula of the The Public Theaters first mailer. Inspired by Victorian wood type.

Environmental graphics created by Paula and her team in 2012.

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1995

1995

1996

Another

one of Paula’s most acclaimed works were her designs for The Public Theater’s show, Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk. The posters she created are vibrant and filled top to bottom with typography. Within three years of her creating these posters, this style became a graphic design standard, and truly put Paula Scher on the map to becoming one of the most influential graphic designers in the United States. In Abstract: The Art of Design, Paula Scher’s co-partner at Pentagram, Michael Bierut, describes the poster designs as “A paradigm shift, a new moment for The Public Theater… She figured out a way to take what she saw on stage and turned it into ink on paper… It’s crazy, it’s in your face, It’s just like New York.”

I love the big scale and immediate impact of posters.

They're my favorite things to design.

1995

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2014 U.S. Geography and Climate, 37 Ă— 54 in.

2006 Tsunami, 113.5 x 92 in.

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2014, U.S. Area Codes and Times Zones. 37 x 54 in.

Mural at Paula Scher’s Queens Metropolitan Campus, a public middle school.

2017 Map painted for the New York Times article about the #MeToo movement.

2011. Antarctica, 99 x 105 in.

1992 Self-portrait map with hand-painted typography.

2008 NYC Transit, 60 x 33 in.

Outside

of designing brand identities, posters, and album covers, Paula is well known for her intricate, handpainted, typographic maps. She has created several of these maps, each tracking a different idea and information. She has mapped zip codes, towns, counties, and demographics; for the United States and other countries. She has mapped the New York City transit, road ways, destination points, and even a self portrait.

In 2017, Paula joined the #MeToo movement and created a map for The New York Times article, THE RECKONING. WOMEN AND POWER IN THE WORKPLACE (Left page). In the Netflix documentary (Abstract: The Art of Design), Paula talks about how as a young designer she hand painted all her fonts, and missed doing so. This is part of the reasoning behind her still painting these mind blowing, large scale maps.

Paula doesn’t only paint maps to express her skill and love of hand painted type, but because her father was a map maker.

The combination of personalized writing and painting was a creative break through for me ...

I became increasingly obsessed with painting useless information.

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Typography is painting with words. That's my biggest high, it’s my crack.

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Windows 8 brand identity designed by Paula, 2012.

Citi Bank identity created by Paula when the bank merged with Travelers Insurance in 1998.

Shake Shack identity designed in 2006 by Paula Scher and her Pentagram team.

Images and references: “Abstract: The Art of Design.”

Netflix. http://www.netflix.com/ title/80057883.

Scher, Paula, and Mark Lamster.

Make It Bigger Paula Scher. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.

Scher, Paula. Paula Scher: Maps: Paintings, Installations, Drawings and Prints. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012.

Biography by AIGA March 01.

“2001 AIGA Medalist: Paula Scher.”

AIGA | the Professional Association for Design. https://www.aiga.org/ medalist-paulascher/.

Identity for The Metropolitan Opera designed in 2006.

Logo designed for The New School of Design in 2015.

“Paula Scher.” Pentagram. https://www. pentagram.com/about/paula-scher “The Public Theater Lobby.” Pentagram, www.pentagram.com/work/thepublic-theater-lobby.

“The Reckoning: Women and Power in the Workplace.” The New York Times.

December 13, 2017. https://www. nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/13/ magazine/the-reckoning-women-andpower-in-the-workplace.html.

Identity designed for the New York City Ballet in 2008.

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Paula Scher working at CBS Records in 1980.

“Paula Scher; American Graphic Designer and Typographer.” designed and written by Hayley Emmons Composed in Franklin Gothic, designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902 And Helvetica Neue, designed by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmannin 1957.

Copyright © 2018 Hayley Emmons, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art