Paula Scher has been a pioneering force in graphic design for over five decades. She began her career as an art director in the 1970s and early 1980s, when her eclectic approach to typography became highly influential. In 1991 she became a partner in the New York office of Pentagram, the distinguished international design consultancy, where she leads a team that develops brand identities, signage, packaging and publications for clients all over the world.
Scher’s typographic work is guided by her belief that “words have meaning, and type has spirit” – that people recognize type and understand the emotion, wit, power, beauty and other human sensibilities behind it without reading. Following the early advice of a teacher to “illustrate with type,” she has explored this idea throughout her career. Her iconic identity for The Public Theater, with its active, all-encompassing typography, helped redefine the graphic language of performing arts institutions, and her use of custom typefaces has made them an essential part of modern branding. Her work in signage and environmental graphics has reimagined streets and buildings as dynamic installations of type, while her personal map paintings and drawings have recast the world in handwritten lettering.
This unique installation ensures that visitors experience Paula Scher’s work in a very special way. The exhibition features commissioned works from Scher’s early career through until the present day. From the corporate identity and graphic design campaign for the Public Theater in New York via the campaign for Rockaway Beach following the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 through to her room and facade designs the great diversity of Scher’s oeuvre becomes visible.