It seems a bit ironic that Paula Scher began her career as an illustrator but has received the greatest recognition for her use of typography. As an art director at Atlantic and CBS Records in the 1970s, she created numerous album covers with strong graphic and typographic designs, eschewing the genre’s dominant and conventional uses of photography and illustration. Today she is a partner in Pentagram’s New York office producing identities, posters, exhibition designs, and the like for such organizations as the Public Theater of New York, the Lincoln Center Jazz programs, the American Museum of Natural History, and Herman Miller. She has drawn inspiration from a diverse range of historical design, which she admires for its emotional resonance and appeal to contemporary audiences. When she says “I’d rather be the Beatles than Philip Glass,” she acknowledges her own characterization as a “Pop designer.” A recipient of more than 100 awards, Scher has been inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame and the Alliance Graphique Internationale, and has been awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts’ Gold Medal and the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation. You can read about Scher in the recently published book on her work to date, Make It Bigger.
Paula Scher, Pentagram, New York
