paula scher interview

paula scher is an american graphic designer and illustrator who is a principal at pentagram. scher kicked off the 2013 design indaba conferences in cape town, south africa, and designboom spoke to her about her practice, and the worst piece of advice she has ever been given.

DB: please could you tell us about your background and how you came to do the work you do now?

PS: I was an illustration major at tyler school of art. I really didn’t draw well, but I learned to illustrate with type. I began designing for the music business in the 1970 when i got out of school and was senior art director at CBS records (now sony) when I was 26. I was responsible for the design and production of about 150 albums (12 x12 format) a year. I learned how to work in every style and became obsessed with period typography. a lot of the work was later referred to as ‘postmodernism’ but I didn’t know what that was at the time I did the work. I was merely experimenting with early modernist typography. I can trace almost every project I work on back to the music business. so much of my work is for theater or dance or other forms of popular culture. even when I am designing identities for corporations, I seem to operate through the lens of the entertainment industry.

left: ‘best of jazz’ in-store poster | right: elvis costello in-store poster
portrait of paula scher © designboom

DB: what were your first significant projects?

PS: a series of album covers for the best of jazz where I experimented with russian cobstructivism. the in-store posters were the best part of the series. I also still like my poster for elvis costello. another would be a series of jazz albums that relied of large scale objects for bob james (tappan zee records) and a number of intricate typographic albums.

the public theater logo

posters for the public theater

poster for public theater

DB: what made you decide to join pentagram rather than work independently?

PS: after CBS records, I was partners with my friend from college, terry koppel – we worked together for seven years under the name ‘koppel and scher’. terry koppel was a magazine designer and in 1989 there was a recession and he didn’t get anymore magazines to design so he took a staff job, while I continued on my own. I realized that as a woman alone in business I wasn’t likely to get large scale projects and that the work I was already getting was probably be what I would continue to get. when pentagram invited me to join I knew it was an amazing opportunity. I would have never been able to work on the broad diverse types of projects I have been fortunate enough to work on without the reputation and structure of pentagram behind it.

citibank logo

DB: what is the attraction of designing identities for you?

PS: identities are the beginning of everything. they are how something is recognized and understood. what could be better than that?

windows 8 logo

DB: given your experience, are you able to finalize a logo or identity much quicker than before?

PS: the process takes varying amounts of time depending on the various individuals involved. it doesn’t matter how long something takes. all that matters is how the end user perceives the design.

the high line logo

DB: what mistakes or ‘traps’ should a young designer avoid when working on an identity system?

PS: understand what the client does. understand the audience. be able to explain why you designed something a certain way and be prepared to inspire your client to a level beyond their expectations.

new jersey performing arts center exterior graphics

DB: what drew you to working on wayfinding and environmental design programs?

PS: by the year 2000, most interesting design had become digital. I like physical things more than designs that live on screens. environmental graphic design was a way to design in the real world, not the virtual one.

new jersey performing arts center exterior graphics