A Few Key Women in Graphic Design from the 1940's to 1980's

During the 20^th Century women and minorities worked to gain equal footing in many areas. Today women and minorities have a smoother road and less hurdles to achieve career success. 

The women whom led the charge in graphic design achieved success in Europe and America. The work of women in graphic design was led primarily by women in Europe and later in the America - from Tissi in Europe leading to loosen up a style that was industrial and cubist in nature, International Typographic Style to Pineles employed in New York publishing world and its male dominated art and literary world to Sussman working on the design for the LA Olympics.
 

The following women were paramount in breaking the glass ceiling in the graphic design industry in the 1940’s to 1990’s in Europe and the US:

Rosmarie Tissi: Worked in Zurich with Odermatt and further developed the International Typographic Style. The Style applied an accepted universality in design and a scientific approach using asymmetrical design on grid, objective photography and typography that is left-justified. The contribution Tissi provided with Obermatt was to loosen up the design using a playful approach to the structured design in addition to her design work she became a partner at Obermantt and Tissi. Their contribution introduced change and intuitive visual organization to graphic design.

Jacqueline Casey: Already successful as the Director of Design Services Office at MIT, Casey was responsible for offering professional assistance to MIT on design publication and materials. She brought about design and typographic forms to express the message from content.

Cipe Pineles: Worked at many of the top magazine publications in New York, such as Vogue, where she worked with Dr. Agha As part of te New York School, she was paramount in the 1940’s and 1950’s in developing editorial design. The first Art Director at Glamour magazine and the first woman admitted to the New York Art Director’s Guild.

Bea Feitler: During the 1960’s the Feminist movement was gaining ground as well as many civic rights movements. The magazine “Ms” Bea Feitler was the Art Director. She directed the use of diversified typography and scale to bring about a fresh approach to the magazine and influence for the women’s movement.

Deborah Sussman: Head of her design firm that worked on the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Muriel Cooper: an MIT designer whom later founded VLW – Visible Language Workshop she focused on her goal to move graphic designed focused from form to content and facilitate the ability extract data from the WWW.

So why have women not received the recognition over the last 100-plus years that modern graphic design has changed with significant technological developments introduced since the Industrial Age?  I think there are a few major factors, and those factors are presented briefly here:

• A male-dominated work environment leads to less opportunity to gain experience and market skills and develop seminal work.

• There are few positions available in large or leading firms. Until the women’s movement in the 1960s many American women had few opportunities available to them.  As we learned in this class the development of graphic design has been centuries long process. I expect in the next 100 years a profound shift in GD as the Information Age and the Internet and new methods of information exchange open unknown areas which likely require new methods effective communication.

Found an interesting book on Amazon.  If you have this book let me know what you think about it. The book titled, Women in Graphic Design - 1890 - 2012,  December 2012, by Sabine Bartelsheim (Author), Ute Brüning (Author), Gerda Breuer (Editor), Julia Meer (Editor).  Here is the link on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-1890-2012-English-Edition/dp/3868591532