Paula Scher is one of the most influential Graphic Designers in the world. She's described as the “master conjurer of the instantly familiar,” Scher straddles the line between pop culture and fine art in her work. She also served as the first female principal at Pentagram, which she joined in 1991.
Some of Paula Scher's stand out work to me is shown below.
The Diva is Dismissed poster (left) Book of the Dead poster (right), designed for The Public Theater in 1994 and 2000 respectively
The bright contrasting colours of her work make it impossible to miss, I love the use of a minimal colour palette and in her work it's present how powerful and impactful it can be in a design. The bold sans serif lettering used also adds to the dramatic strong look of the posters getting the message on them across to the intended audience.
Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk poster, designed for The Public Theater in 1995
These two posters again follow the same style, I particularly like the collage approach of these, the use of space and how the typography all fits in at different angles and directions filling the blank space perfectly. Her style is "instantly familiar" yet iconic. The technique she employed to attract a more diverse crowd’s attention involved the juxtaposition of street typography and graffiti.
I was intrigued by the halftone effect of this design and how the overlapping of colours makes the image more captivating to look at as it almost makes an illusion on the eye of motion/movement. Again the collaged typography on top of the image makes it striking and catches your eye instantly.
This poster is more simplistic when compared to some of her others, although its more simple it still has the same boldness and shes cleverly designed the type around the main imagery of the women. Her positioning of the text makes the reader look closer to read and take in each line.
These posters here once again show how successful her work was at grabbing the readers attention, her super bold typography in the 3 striking primary colours make the words pop out of the page perfectly advertising the production, making it look like an exciting sensational experience.
Paula Scher's “postmodern” appellation stems from her exuberant rejection of modernist strictures demanding neutral and “clean” designs. For Scher, expressivity is of paramount value. Without a doubt, Paula worked relentlessly to revolutionise the graphic designing industry with her overzealous determination and creative work for over four decades. She for sure will be someone I admire and look up to as one of my design hero's for a long time.