Research Paper

 

Paula Scher

Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. Paula Scher, born October 6, 1948, Washington D.C is an American graphic designer, painter and art educator in design. She also served as the first female principal at Pentagram, which she joined in 1991. I chose Her because I love the old album covers she use to make, and the maps that she painted in 1972, she was hired by CBS Records to the advertising and promotions department. After two years, she left CBS Records to pursue a more creative endeavor at a competing label, Atlantic Records, where she became the art director, designing her first album covers. A year later Scher returned to CBS as an art director for the cover department. During her eight years at “CBS Records “stated, “she is credited with designing as many as 150 album covers a year”. That’s Alot of album covers per year, on top of that Paula Scher also has posters and ads to go along with the album covers. I find it very interesting how Paula Scher kept coming up with these creative posters.

In 1992, she became a design educator, teaching at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. She received more than 300 awards from international design associations as well as a series of prizes from the American Institute of Graphic Design, The Type Directors Club (NY), New York Art Directors Club and the Package Design Council. She is a select member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI), and her work is included in the collections of New York Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Museum fur Gestaltung, Zurich and the Centre Georges Pompidou . As an artist she is known for her large-scale paintings of maps, covered with dense hand-painted labeling and information. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York for over two decades, along with positions at the Cooper Union, Yale University and the Tyler School of Art. Last year I watched a documentary on Paula scher, and being someone that was new to graphic design she gave me a lot of information about the field and the career paths one can take in graphic design.

Bibliography

  1. “Paula Scher”, Wikipedia, July/ 10/ 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Scher
  2. CBS/ Atlantic Records, “Paula Scher”, August 9, 2017, paulastribute.weebly.com/1974-1983-cbsatlantic-records.html
  3. “Famous Graphic Designers”, May 8, 2012, https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/paula-scher
  4. “Artsy”, https://www.artsy.net/artist/paula-scher
  5. “Sedge” https://segd.org/paula-scher