Paula Scher

Paula Scher is an American graphic designer and a painter from Washington DC. She was the first female principal at Pentagram, a well-known design studio. She is widely known for singlehandedly defining the cultural scene of New York in the 1990’s. One thing that stuck in my head about her was that when she was asked to create a new design for Windows, a brand known all over the world, she immediately said to the client and said “Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?”

She studied at the Tyler School of Philadelphia and collected her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 1970. It was ultimately her travel to New York where she made her name. She was hired by CBS Records in 1972 and was in the advertising and promotions department. She left two years later because she wanted to purse a more creative lifestyle. She was picked up by Atlantis Records, a competing label. She became the art director and began designing her first album covers. After a year had passed she returned to CBS Records as the art director in the cover department and continued to work there, creating album covers. She got four Grammy nominations. She also spent five years working as a freelance graphic designer, in which time she picked up many briefs from different clients. She founded Koppel and Scher with her classmate Terry Koppel. Once they went their separate ways, Scher went on to become a partner at New York’s office of Pentagram. Over her life, she has worked for many huge brands, such as Coca Cola, Windows, the Museum of Modern Art and many more. She is an inspiration to many young designers. 

"Bring in the Noise Bring in the Funk" posters for the Public Theater

This is a piece of work by Paula Scher and was created for The Public Theater in New York. It was a musical in 1995 and a year later was moved to Broadway. It is a musical history of rhythm in an African-American lifestyle which is through dancing and tap style. There are two posters above, and were both made for the same musical. I really like the design and style of these posters, and are the complete opposite of minimalism. The poster on the left shows the tap artist in black and white slightly to the left of the centre and is in a pose, and is the first thing I saw when looking at the poster.  Around him is what really makes the poster so effective. Around the tap artist are words relating to the Public Theater and the musical and is a very good example of typography. It also has a very vibrant colour scheme, as black and yellow with a little bit of red and white works incredibly well. The background is in a bright yet easy-to-see shade of yellow, and the black typography really draws attention to itself, allowing you to read the text with ease. The type is also in all sorts of weights, such as bold, or thin, or bigger than the text underneath it. I think this is what makes the poster so powerful, because it takes a lot of knowledge about type to be able to create something so crammed and packed full of information and still be able to create a poster that is clear and easy to understand. The one on the right is also a tap artist cutout in black and white and is posing in the centre, and again, the text and typography is all around him. This time the colour scheme is different, and is white blue and red, which small hints of black and purple. I don’t think this is as powerful as the one on the left, but is still very effective in terms of advertising and promotion. I like the way the words ‘noise’ and ‘funk’ were straight and not an angle, yet still had all different sizes and weights. I also like how in this poster there are entire quotes from reviews and paragraphs in very small text. Overall I think both of these posters are great pieces of art and define Paula Scher’s art style. 

"The Diva Is Dismissed" posters for the Public Theater

This is a post-modern poster also by Paula Scher and promotes Jenifer Lewis’ solo show, “The Diva Is Dismissed”, which was an autobiographical comedy and music show. She performed at the Public Theater. It could be said that this is one of the best posters of the end of the era and is rightfully in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. There is much less information on this poster than the last one, yet still just as effective. The same shade of yellow is being used and is a very eye catching shade of yellow. Other colours being used in this poster are black and blue, and both work very well against the yellow background. There is a cutout of the woman’s face and the cutout is bright blue. She looks shocked or surprised. There are words coming out of her mouth in Scher’s style of typography, and is in all different sizes and weights. The word ‘Diva’ is the first word I saw, as it is in a big size and is quite bold. I think this is a great example of Paula Scher’s work and captures how she can do both maximalist and minimalist types of work and still make it look very powerful.