Paula Scher (born October 6, 1948) is an American graphic designer, painter, and design educator. She is a partner at the design firm Pentagram, which she joined in 1991. She began her career as an art director in the 1970s and early 1980s, gaining recognition for her eclectic approach to typography, which became highly influential.
Education Scher studied at the Tyler School of Art, in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1970.
Life and career Scher moved to New York City and took her first job as a layout artist for Random House's children's book division.
CBS Records In 1972, she was hired by CBS Records in 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 Atlantic Records, she was credited with designing as many as 150 album covers a year. Some of those iconic album cover designs include Boston (Boston), Eric Gale (Ginseng Woman), Leonard Bernstein (Poulenc Stravinsky), Bob James (H), Bob James and Earl Klugh (One on One), Roger Dean and David Howells (The Ultimate Album Cover Album), and Jean-Pierre Rampal and Lily Laskin (Sakura: Japanese Melodies for Flute and Harp). Her designs were recognized with four Grammy nominations. Her work during this time was noted for its eclectic use of typography. She is also credited with reviving historical typefaces and design styles.
Russian constructivism She left Atlantic Records to work on her own in 1982. Scher developed a typographic solution based on Art Deco and Russian constructivism, which incorporated outmoded typefaces into her work. The Russian constructivism had provided Scher inspiration for her typography; she did not copy the early constructivist style, but used its vocabulary of form on her works.
Koppel and Scher In 1984 she co-founded Koppel and Scher with editorial designer and fellow Tyler graduate Terry Koppel. During the seven years of their partnership, she produced identities, packaging, book jackets, and advertising, including the famous Swatch poster.
Pentagram In 1991, after the studio suffered from the recession and Koppel took a position as creative director at Esquire, Scher began consulting and joined Pentagram as a partner in the New York office. Since then, she has been a principal at the New York office of the Pentagram design consultancy, where she has developed identity and branding systems, promotional materials, environmental graphics, packaging, and publication designs for a broad range of clients, including Bloomberg, Microsoft, Bausch + Lomb, Coca-Cola, Shake Shack, The New School, the Museum of Modern Art, the Sundance Institute, the High Line, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Educator In 1992, Scher began her career as a design educator, teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has served as a faculty member in the MFA Design program for over two decades, with a focus on typography and brand identity, along with holding teaching positions at the Cooper Union, Yale University and the Tyler School of Art.
Writing Scher has contributed to numerous issues of Print. Her first Print cover was with her friend Steven Heller. Together, they created a parody issue in 1985, a genealogy chart of graphic design. Scher has authored several books, including the 2002 Make it Bigger (New York: Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-332-8) based on her experience as a designer. In 2011, the Swedish Hall of Femmes project published a book focused on and interviewing Scher: Hall of Femmes: Paula Scher.
Film and television Scher was interviewed for the 2007 Helvetica film, where she discussed her dislike of Helvetica. Scher was profiled in the first season of the 2017 Netflix docuseries Abstract: The Art of Design.
Branding and identity systems
The Public Theater
In 1994, Scher was the first designer to create a new identity and promotional graphics system for The Public Theater, a program that became the turning point of identity in designs that influence much of the graphic design created for theatrical promotion and for cultural institutions in general. Based on the challenge to raise public awareness and attendance at the Public Theater, along with trying to appeal to a more diverse demographic, Scher created a graphic language that reflected street typography and graffiti-like juxtaposition. In 1995, Scher and her Pentagram team created promotional posters for the Public Theater's production of Savion Glover's Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk featuring typography inspired by wood type, used throughout the Public Theater's identity. These posters were inspired by Rob Roy Kelly's American Wood Types and Victorian theater posters, and combined disparate wood typefaces, silhouetted photographs, and vibrant, flat colors. Scher limited use of colors to two or three, while highlighting the play title and Public Theater logo. The design was intended to appeal to a broad audience, especially to those who had not been familiar with the theater. From 1993 to 2005, Scher worked closely with George C. Wolfe, The Public's producer, and Oskar Eustis, who joined as artistic director during the 50th anniversary in 2005, on the development of posters, ads, and distinct identities. As part of the anniversary campaign, the Public Theater logo was redrawn using the font Akzidenz Grotesk. The word "theater" was dropped from the logotype, and emphasis was placed on the word "Public". By 2008, the identity was revised with a font called Knockout, created by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. The Public Theater posters:
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