Women in Design

Briar Levit

A look at eight designers who have helped shape the world of layout and typography.

If you don’t know a great deal about women in graphic design history, you are forgiven. As in most disciplines, their stories have been left in the margins or simply not included at all. But women have, of course, always held a place in design, and in some ways their stories are all the more impressive when you imagine what they were working against in what was long a male-dominated field.

It’s worth exploring women’s place in graphic design for a number of reasons. First and foremost, representation matters. It’s important for us, especially when we are learning and finding our voices, to see some representation of ourselves in our discipline, in order to feel a connection and sense of belonging. Secondly, it’s always good to simply expand your knowledge about who designed what, who innovated this approach or that technique. Understanding the roots of our discipline gives us a chance to make our own work more deliberately—with a better understanding of the context in which the typefaces we are using were designed, what the layout styles or color palettes we choose might indicate, and so on.

The following is a jump-start list of must-know women graphic designers. In order to narrow things down a bit, I’ve focused the list to women known for their publication and layout work—the kind of work that could have been done (or may have been done) using Adobe InDesign. Of course, keep in mind that many of these women started designing before the desktop computer existed, so, let’s give them extra honors for the level of thinking, planning, and hand skill that went into their ground-breaking work!

Note: For the sake of brevity, I’ve left many deserving women off this list, including Paula Scher, who is currently perhaps the most famous woman designer. Fortunately, Paula has already received quite a lot of coverage in the last couple of years—including a gorgeous monograph (Unit Editions) and an episode of the Netflix series, Abstract, not to mention being one of only two women interviewed in the film Helvetica (out of 26 interviewees).

Varvara Stepanova

1894–1958

Best known for: Theater costumes and revolutionary propaganda

As a part of the group of early modernists in Soviet Russia known as Constructivists, Varvara Stepanova’s work contributes to the foundation for graphic design as we know it today. The Constructivists drove to make work that that celebrated technology and that served a utilitarian purpose, rather than “art for art’s sake.” Constructivist designers developed modern typographic forms, innovated photomontage methods, pushed illustration from its highly detailed and figurative state, and challenged the static page layout in general, all within the commercial realm of advertising, package design, and other mainstream applications. The exchange of ideas and approaches with those of the De Stijl and Bauhuas designers was an explosion of design development in the 1920s.

Like many of her era, Stepanova began as a painter in the teens, but evolved to abstract work relatively early in her career. In fact, she and a group of five of her Constructivist peers (including her husband, Aleksandr Rodchenko) essentially “came out” as designers in an exhibition called “5×5=25” in 1921, in which each exhibitor displayed five pieces to announce their move away from painting and into design. Stepanova had already been working with letterforms in her paintings for some time, and even experimenting with the typewriter to set concrete poems. Looking at her body of work, it seems like a logical next step.

As a designer, Stepanova created books, posters, theater sets, and costumes and, perhaps most famously, textiles and athletic clothing. (Although it’s worth noting that she and many other avant-garde artists did return to painting in later years.) She believed deeply in the importance of a designer’s responsibility to engage with the materials and production process itself. On the more theoretical side, she also felt it was important to discuss her ideas about art and design, and shared her thoughts in lectures and in writing on everything from aesthetics in general to book design specifically.

It’s important to note that Stepanova was able to make her work in the early 20^th century, and share the stage with male contemporaries, in a way that didn’t happen in most other countries for decades. But she wasn’t an anomaly in the former USSR. There were a number of well-known women designers, such as Liubov Popova, Valentina Kulagina, and Nina Vatolina, who were creating critical works of the revolutionary decades and beyond as well.

Cipe Pineles

1908–1991

Best known for: Vogue, Seventeen, Charm

Austrian-American émigré Cipe Pineles (pronounced cee-pee) established herself as one of the great publication designers of the 20^th century with her contributions and art direction for numerous titles, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Seventeen, and Charm. Pineles graduated from Pratt School of Art & Design, and after a year of portfolio reviews (1930), she was working in a design collaborative called Contempora on a wide range of projects. She likely would have been working sooner, if potential employers hadn’t repeatedly rejected her upon discovering she was a woman.

It was at her next job, working for Condé Nast, that Cipe Pineles really began to develop into the designer we know her as today. Here, under the art director of M. F. Agha (Vogue, Vanity Fair, and House and Garden), Pineles learned the finer points of editorial design, and later, art direction. By 1942, Pineles was named art director for Glamour.

At Glamour, Pineles did something unexpected for a middle-market fashion magazine: she chose to work with top image-makers in photography and illustration, consistently elevating the magazine as she did. This included people like Herbert Matter, Ladislav Sutnar, and relative unknowns (at the time) like Seymour Chwast. Additionally, she is credited with innovating the practice of hiring fine artists as illustrators.

In the late 1940s, Pineles worked with the founder and editor of Seventeen, Helen Valentine, on that magazine, making a point of writing and designing the magazine in a voice that didn’t talk down to the audience and that aimed at educating them. This approach was especially notable in a teen magazine, which would previously have been prone to commissioning juvenile illustrations instead of the more refined images she commissioned from fine artists. Of course, the advertisements still portrayed a limited view of girl-to-womanhood, but the contents of the articles themselves “showed something different: ways for American females to see themselves involved in the wider world and in possession and control of knowledge, money, and their destinies,” notes her biographer, Martha Scotford.

In her work for Charm magazine, subtitled “The magazine for women who work,” Pineles attempted to show the working world of women as inviting but not unrealistic. Pineles said, “We tried to make the prosaic attractive without using the tired clichés of false glamour. You might say we tried to convey the attractiveness of reality, as opposed to the glitter of a never-never land.”

Pineles was awarded frequently for her work, but for all this achievement it took far too long for her to be admitted into the well-known New York Art Director’s Club, despite the fact her former boss, M. F. Agha, had been proposing her for years. In fact, it wasn’t until her husband, William Golden—whom she had helped gain a foothold in the design world and had been tapped for membership—“pointed out that the ADC was hardly a professional club if it had ignored his fully qualified wife.” They were both admitted in 1948. She was the first woman admitted to the club. It wasn’t until 15 years later that another woman was admitted. In 1975, Pineles was inducted into the ADC Hall of Fame, and in 1996 was awarded the prestigious AIGA Medal.

As is not uncommon for designers like Pineles, she also dedicated some of her time to teaching (in her case, at Parsons School of Art & Design). She taught into her seventies, sharing her knowledge with the next generations, some of whom went on to art direct major publications themselves.

Muriel Cooper

1925–1994

Best known for: Co-founding the Visible Language Workshop, MIT Press logotype and publications, and 3D screen typography experimentation

In 1975, the computer wasn’t in many American homes, but Muriel Cooper was steps ahead. She said, “the shift from a mechanical to an information society demands new communication processes, new visual and verbal languages, and new relationships of education, practice, and production.” With this thinking, Cooper co-founded (with Ron MacNeil) the Visible Language Workshop (VLW) at MIT. At this point, she was already a well-known, award-winning designer having worked both at the MIT Publications office and for herself. (You may very well have her work on your bookshelf in the form of the exquisite MIT Press logotype.) But not one to rest on her laurels, hungry for the new, and knowing there was so much to discover, Muriel took on this new direction at the age of 49.

Cooper’s class “Messages and Means” was consistently over-enrolled with students wanting to learn design skills that they could apply to experiments in technological developments. Her work focused on type on the screen and how motion allowed for a new way of interaction and communication. Students in the VLW also explored typography on the screen as well as file organization, image editing, 3D rendering of type and image, animation, even artificial intelligence, and more—much of it at a time before the Macintosh computer even existed! Add on top of all of this that Cooper was the only tenured female professor at the Workshop at the time of her death, and she is nothing short of spectacular. Cooper led the Workshop for 20 years until her untimely death in 1994.

Deborah Sussman

1931–2014

Best known for: 1984 Olympics identity, Walt Disney World & Euro Disney wayfinding, the graphic visual language of the Eames Office

Starting out at the Eames Office, Deborah Sussman developed her dynamic sense of color under the tutelage of Ray Eames. There is a sense of joy and yet utility to the way the Sussman used color throughout her four decades as a designer. Her color and design systems are what really set her apart.

While at the Eames office, Sussman worked on the incredible “IBM Mathematica Exhibit” and Day of the Dead film, among other projects. In 1968, she went on to found her own studio, and in 1980, she was joined by her architect husband, Paul Presja. These two made a fantastic team, working primarily on environmental projects, both nationwide and internationally.

So successful was Sussman/Presja & Company, that they were awarded one of the most coveted design projects in the world: the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles! The identity, materials, and structures they created for the event reflected the playful West Coast energy of Los Angeles and remain one of the great examples of Olympic design.

The office continued to focus on graphics-driven spaces, which Sussman referred to as “graphitecture,” working with many esteemed architects, including Frank Gehry and Foster Partners. Over the decades, the studio has continued to make dynamic work for clients like Disney World, The Museum of African American Diaspora, and Hasbro. The studio continues on after Sussman’s passing in 2014.

April Greiman

b. 1948

Best known for: Design Quarterly #133: “Does it Make Sense?”, Sci-arc identity, and Wet magazine

When the Macintosh computer landed on the scene in the mid-1980s, it was seen as either a blessing or a curse, depending on which designer you spoke to. Many designers were wary of this potential job-stealer—or simply unimpressed with its output resolution. But some designers were drawn to it “like a moth to a flame,” as April Greiman quipped in the documentary, Graphic Means.

Despite her classic, Swiss design training, Greiman is best known for the way her work challenged traditional notions of fine typography, the grid, and image-making in the ’80s and ’90s. Some of this can be traced back to her study under great New Wave designer Wolfgang Weingart. However, she found a strong voice of her own, especially after her move from the East Coast to the West, and in the adoption of digital technology. Her work in the 1980s consisted of a beautiful mixture of classic sharp, photoset typography with the new, bitmapped aesthetic that the computer’s limitations imposed on digital typefaces and imagery. Greiman had clients in the cultural sphere, the culinary, and, not-surprisingly, the high-technology industries.

To the many detractors resistant to a new tool such as the Mac, and to the new visual language it was enabling, Greiman argued that “The computer is just another pencil” and that “What we are discovering is a new texture, a new design language, a new landscape in communications. As people become empowered with this tool we’ll see terrible things and wonderful things.” Rather than succumb to fear, Greiman was both pragmatic about the tool and optimistic about its potential. So perhaps, when a new technology debuts and you feel yourself disregarding it, or fearing its effects, think instead, “what would April Greiman think?” and I bet your approach will be much more positive, and productive, too!

Today, Greiman continues making work in the form of public art, photography (her series “Drive-by Shooting” has been ongoing over 30 years!), and 3D projects—often collaborations with architects.

Louise Fili

b. 1951

Best known for: The Lover (book cover), food packaging, various regional and historical typography source books

Louise Fili has used her love and deep research into historical Italian typography to inform a contemporary practice that combines the high standards of yesterday with a fresh voice for today. She started her career working in the office of Herb Lubalin, but was soon designing book covers at Pantheon (Random House). Over the span of her career, she has designed almost 2,000 book jackets!

It was at Pantheon that she developed a reputation for turning the typical concept of the book cover on its head. Instead of the usual loud, foil-stamped, brash graphics favored at the time, Fili used muted color palettes, fine typography, and ample white space to create emotive tones that ended up selling wildly and inspiring generations of book designers to come.

Upon starting her own studio in 1989, Fili transitioned into doing work for the restaurant and food packaging world out of sheer passion for the subject. The typography on her packaging projects is second to none in concept and execution, and has also been credited with increasing sales for her clients.

Simultaneously, she has designed a venerable collection of books on typography in collaboration with design historian (and husband) Steven Heller. Titles typically cover historical topics from Italian Art Déco to the recent stunning source book, Slab Serif Type.

Fili’s work can be found in fine groceries, of course, but also in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and the Biliothéque Nationale, among others.

Irma Boom

b. 1960

Best known for: Nederlandse Postzegels (book), SHV Think Book 1996–1896, and Weaving as Metaphor (book)

For a time, some were saying the internet had signaled “the end of print.” Massimo Vignelli himself exclaimed in a book design panel that “the book is dead!” Of course, now we know that the book has survived—almost better than we could have expected. People are putting their kindles down to read on paper again, Amazon is opening brick-and-mortar stores, and independent bookstores are making a comeback in some parts of the United States.

But the books of Irma Boom were never in danger, because she has always treated the book as a precious object,—one to research and explore anew with each new commission. Boom has made books with over 8,000 pages, books with 80 spot colors, used newly invented paper stocks, and built books as small as 1.5×2 inches.

Her clients have included the likes of Knoll, Chanel, Rem Koolhaus, and The Rijksmusuem, but Boom started her career at what might seem like a fairly humble place—the Staatsdrukkerij en Uitgeverij, the Dutch state-owned printing and publishing office. She’d been turned down for a job at the well-known Total Design studio and been advised by a teacher to try the state design department. It turned out that this couldn’t have been a better choice for her. Here she was able to experiment with great freedom on advertisements and other jobs that no one else was interested in. But it wasn’t long before the boss, as Eye magazine put it, “invited the designer of the ‘crazy-ads’ to do one of the most prestigious book jobs: the annual Dutch postage stamps books.” From that illuminating project on, Boom continued to take her briefs and create unique solutions from them, regardless of the subject.

For over three decades now, Irma has continued to reinvent the format of the book for each project, working with an auteur-like mindset that is prized by commissioners looking for something unique, or something that couldn’t exist as a PDF—a consideration of Boom’s, when she thinks about books translating to digital environments.

And when she’s not designing one of her sculptural books, she’s working on identities for the likes of The Rijksmuseum, a design for a 110-meter tunnel at Amsterdam’s Central Station, or curtains for the UN headquarters in New York City.

Ellen Lupton

b. 1963

Best known for: Thinking with Type (book), Graphic Design Now In Production (book and exhibition), and MICA Graphic Design MFA

Ellen Lupton could be called the grande dame of contemporary design writing. She has written innumerable essays and lectures and published over 20 books, including the seminal text, Thinking with Type (2004), which is publisher Princeton Architectural Press’ all-time bestselling title.

It’s not surprising, then, that Lupton’s was one of the strongest voices in the 1990s advocating for something many of us may now take for granted—“designer as author.” Throughout her career, she has carved out a space for herself as a writer and designer of equal talents, who creates her own content, exquisitely designed, for books, curriculum, and exhibitions. Her books have covered topics like graphic design fundamentals, DIY bookmaking, the senses, women and machines, and more.

As a typography student at Cooper Union, Lupton realized that design and writing were intimately related, and clearly never looked back. Upon graduation in 1985 she was asked to run the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, which in turn led to her becoming a curator at the Smithsonian’s national design museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, in 1992—and all the time she continued to play a hand in designing for the content she was writing/curating.

She has been the director of Maryland Institute College of Art Graphic Design MFA program since 2003, while continuing as curator at the Cooper Hewitt National Design museum in New York City since 1992, speaking nationally and internationally and writing and designing books, often in collaboration with her graduate students.

Despite her intellectual status, Lupton is a strong proponent of DIY approaches to design and writing, often championing new formats like blogs or social media as a way to have a design discourse, rather than attempting to keep the dialog in the Ivory Tower, so-to-speak. She admits she loves the permanency of books, but then again, what book designer doesn’t?