Paula Scher
About
Paula Scher was born October 6, 1948 in Washington DC. She grew up in Washington DC and Philadelphia. Paula's first steps into designing was inspired by her father. Her father was a photogrammetric engineer for the US Geological Survey who invented a device that ensured the distortion-free aerial photography. Her fathers work encouraged her to create hand- printed maps. Scher studied at the Tyler School of Art, in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1970
Paula Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. She has been described as a “master conjurer of the instantly familiar,” Scher stands in between pop culture
and fine art in her work. Iconic, smart, and accessible, her images have entered into the American vernacular. She has worked relentlessly to revolutionize the graphic designing industry with her overzealous determination and creative work for over four decades. Her unabashed and iconic images found their way into American vernacular. Besides this, she is also a painter and an art educator, who became the first female to be offered the principal position at Pentagram in 1990s.
Career
Once Scher moved to New York she ventured off into the world of working in graphic design. She began her professional career as a layout artist. In this field she worked for Random House’s children’s book division.
Subsequently, she landed a job in the advertisement and promotion department of the CBS Records. Within the next two years she joined Atlantic Records, as an art director. In 1982, she resigned from CBS to explore graphic designing on her own. A year later Scher returned to CBS as an art director for the cover department. Scher is credited with designing as many as 150 album covers a year during her time working at the CBS.
Based on Art deco and Russian constructivism,
she developed a typographic solution. The solution employed outmoded typefaces into her designs. Her typography was influenced by Russian constructivism and without imitating its style she only made use of its vocabulary of form. In 1984, she teamed up with a fellow graduate and editorial designer, Tyler Koppel, to establish their firm, Koppel & Scher. The partnership sustained for seven years during which she developed corporate identities, book jackets, advertisement and packaging. She also designed the iconic Swatch poster modeled after Swiss designer Herbert Matter’s work.
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 (AIGA), The Type Directors Club (NY), New York Art Directors Club and the Package Design Council.
She is a select member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) and her work is included in the collections of New York MoMA, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Museum für 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.
Events
Paula Scher: MAPS at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery 505 West 24th Street New York, NY January, 12 - February, 18 2012
Lecture Design Series with April Greiman December 11, 2015
Panel: Paula Scher, Gail Anderson, Joe Marianek,and Zipeng Zhu April 25, 2017 6:30 PM–8:30 PM
BIC Lecture Paula Scher & Erik Oberholzter "Breaking Brand at The City College of New York, Building: Shepard Hall, Room; Great Hall November 6, 2018, 6:00pm-7:00pm
