Paula Scher

New York, August 1995

What makes your typographic work distinct?
At Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, we were taught the Swiss International Style of typography: Helvetica on a grid. I have very bad neatness skills, so that approach didn't work for me. I felt I was being forced to clean up my room. So I became an illustration major. I didn't really draw well, but when I came to New York to look for work, I found that my ideas were good. My teacher, the Polish designer Stanislav Zagorski, had told me to try illustrating with type. So I learned about type in relation to image.

At CBS Records, I would follow the content by echoing it with typography. I would copy a typographic genre and turn it into a record cover in relationship to the cover image. This was not atypical at the time. In the late 1970s there was an economic crash, and as an art director I could no longer afford to put all of our money into imagery. So the type came forward. My work was period influenced--the 1930s, Art Nouveau, Constructivism.

My biggest influence was Seymour [Chwast]. I met him in 1970 with my portfolio. We've married each other twice--once when I was 25, then again when I was 40. I responded to Push Pin when I was in school. They were my heroes. They combined illustration with typography, and they used letterforms from historical periods that I identified with. I was in art school from 1966 to 1970--I liked what was cool at the time, like any art student. Victor Moscoso and the Fillmore posters. I loved Victorian graphics and wood type. I still do.

Has your work changed since your years at CBS?
I have become less interested in rich, illustrative imagery. 90 percent of what I do is just type. Something happened in the 1980s. Clients started to interfere with the process--you would show them an illustration, and they would want to change it, and I found that embarrassing. Also, the illustrator always got the credit for the work. I feel more like the author if the project is typographic. Describe your identity program for the Public Theater. George C. Wolfe [the creative director] had clear, specific goals. The organization was intricately linked to Joseph Papp. To many people, it was the Joseph Papp Theater. The problem was, Joseph Papp had died. So people thought the theater must be dead, too. That's a big image problem. Paul Davis's posters were connected to Joseph Papp's image. Also, Davis's work was linked in people's minds with Masterpiece Theater. His posters were amazing, but we needed to start over to rebuild the image of the Public Theater. It was a tall order, because Paul Davis was loved so well. I felt I couldn't use illustration at all. I focused on type so that no one would compare the new work with that of Paul Davis. Then there was the problem that the New York Theater Festival was better known than the Public Theater as a total organization. We made "PUBLIC" big, so that people would know they were going to the Public.

Does the Public Theater identity draw on any historical or vernacular references?
The different scale relationships coupled with stamps come from Dada. The Apollo Theater posters are another source. They were done in wood type on silkscreened grounds of gradated color. Instead of letterspacing to make everything fit, the printer changed the size of the letters. What they wouldn't do, though, is change the axis of some of the words, as I have done in the Public Theater work.

George Wolfe once told me that at the Public Theater he wanted to make elite culture popular and popular culture elite. That's what I want to do with graphic design.

I've always been what you would call a "pop" designer. I wanted to make things that the public could relate to and understand, while raising expectations about what the "mainstream" can be. My goal is not to be so above my audience that they can't reach it. If I'm doing a cover for a record, I want to sell the record. I would rather be the Beatles than Philip Glass.

© Copyright 1996 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum