#DesignerSpotlight: Paula Scher is Raising Expectations of Design

Meet Paula Scher an artist, designer, innovator, visionary, educator, honorary artist, entrepreneur and painter. Scher’s rich career in the graphic design industry is an inspiration for many budding designers.

She’s the mastermind who has created brand identities for Windows 8, Citibank and Tiffany & Co. , a true leader in the graphics and design industry.

Her legendry career in graphic design started with a humble role as a layout artist for Random House’s children’s book division. The year 1972, brought in a new wind of inspiration for her when she was hired by CBS Records. Her skills soon became recognized in the industry and she got the post of Art Director at Atlantic Records. She later chose to continue her career at CBS records pursuing her passion for designing album art covers. During her 8 years of invigorating and challenging design experience at CBS Records, Paula achieved various milestones in her design career. Her exquisite album cover designs for Boston and Eric Gale’s ‘Ginseng Woman’ will always be remembered.

In 1984 she co-founded Koppel & Scher, where she produced graphic identities for major brands including the famous Swatch poster. This was followed by her exciting career at Pentagram. Since then, she has been working for Pentagram in its New York office, designing brand identities for some of the most respected companies.

She discovered her interests in imparting graphic design knowledge when she joined the School of Visual Arts in New York as a faculty member. Today, she holds positions at a number of prestigious universities including Yale University.

Her career in the print industry has been phenomenal where she made her mark by creating different types of print art. She was the first artist who developed a promotional graphics model for the Public Theater and also participated in developing posters for the New York Shakespeare Festival held at Central Park. The posters she designed showcased typographic styles she had developed herself

Her long and rewarding career in the graphics industry also includes her efforts to design a new identity for the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet. This led to a completely new identity for them and helped increase revenues of these companies. She is also credited with designing a comprehensive brand identity for the Museum of Modern Art. This identity enabled the institution to increase its brand exposure in the digital and print media coherently, as Scher developed a methodology for the institutions brand identity that could work at any scale.

Perhaps the most notable achievement of her career is her endeavor to reshape the graphic industry when she re-invented the concept of brand identities through the use of her unique typographic concepts. Her multi-faceted career tells the legendary story of an artist accomplishing career goals as well as pursuing interests as diverse as entrepreneurship and typography. Her extraordinary achievements are evident from her exquisite designs. She is also known for her unique intellect and a flair for making the impossible seem easy.

Her art not only exhibits the professionalism with which she does her designs, but the dedication she puts into her work.

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