Paula Scher

Paula Scher, born on October 6, 1948, in Washington, D.C., is an established American graphic designer, painter, and educator. She began her career in the 1970s as an art director at CBS Records and Atlantic Records, designing iconic album covers for prominent artists, like Patti Labelle and The Rolling Stones. In the early 1990s, Scher joined Pentagram as a partner, where she led noteworthy rebranding projects for institutions like The Public Theater, MoMA, and Citibank. Scher’s artwork is recognizable by its vibrant colors, dynamic compositions, and expressive typography, often drawing inspiration from popular historical design movements. Moreover, she is a dedicated educator at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has authored several books on the world of design. Scher’s motivation to teach and provide knowledge to future designers in the design field she knows extremely well, is truly captivating.

 The Best of Jazz

    “The Best of Jazz” for CBS records, was designed by Paula Scher in 1979. This poster consists of the names of jazz artists placed within a grid-like structure on different angled axes, in different colors and letterforms of different scales. The colors used influence of Constructivism, in addition to Bauhaus from the structuring of type, sans-serif type, and Dada in the mixing of different typefaces. The designer used vocabulary of forms and form relationships, reinventing and meshing them in particular and original methods. Her use of color and space are unique, and the “floating weightlessness of Russian constructivism” is replaced by a contrast of concentrated packing of the forms. Although this piece seems to be crowded with the amount of elements used, its balanced composition and organized layout is satisfying to view and understand the ideas incorporated into the final design.

Great Beginnings

    Great Beginnings by Paula Scher is a remarkable illustration of her avant-garde use of type style. The composition consists of large, hand-drawn characters that are organized fluidly and energetically to give the impression of motion. Vibrant, bold, and contrasting hues accentuate the typography's effective form and heighten the visual impact to viewers. Simply highlighting the type's sculptural and geometric characteristics rather than using simple text, allows for Scher's design to elevate type into an expressive art form. This piece is in keeping with her distinctive style as a designer, which is evident in other well-known pieces. Scher frequently pushes typography beyond usual limits in designs, considering it as a component that is both aesthetically pleasing and purely practical. This piece demonstrates her skill at employing typography to convey deeper social and intellectual concepts in compositions that not only grab attention, but also stimulate thought. Great Beginnings, like a lot of her pieces, explores the conflict between disorder and order, arranging the letters in a way that is both refreshing and unified. It demonstrates Scher's optimism regarding the ability of design to convey ideas more deeply and emotionally, while advancing her inquiries into the multitude of ways in which typography may go beyond its basic function to become an indispensable expressive element of visual communication.

'SWATCH' Watch Poster

    The bold, colorful design of Paula Scher's SWATCH Watch Poster (1985), exemplifies her distinctive style by fusing contemporary imagery with fanciful typography. The word "WATCH" is highlighted by the poster's large, chunky type, which is represented by vibrant, contrasting colors that exude enthusiasm and energy. Scher's use of type as a visual element and a means of communicating brand identity is reflected in this piece, which also mirrors her larger design philosophy. The SWATCH Watch Poster, like her pieces for corporations such as Citibank, and the Public Theater, blends modernist design ideas with an upbeat, imaginative style to create a visually striking piece that also embodies Swatch's values. Scher's sculptural, expressive typography conveys a sense of motion and is, in my opinion, a pleasant fit for Swatch's innovative and youthful brand image. It exemplifies Scher's capacity to combine commercial design and art to produce strategic, memorable pieces that showcase a brand’s identity to its full potential.