Author Archives: Martha Scotford

About Martha Scotford

Martha Scotford is a book designer, and taught graphic design and design history at North Carolina State University for 32 years. She has received NEA grants for research on women in design, and was a Fulbright Lecturer in India in 2001.

Ernst Reichl, Wide Awake Typographer website

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Martha Scotford

Ernst Reichl, a prominent American book designer from the 30s to the 70s did something no other book designer has done, to my knowledge: he wrote comments and stories and critiques about many of his book designs on index cards, … Continue reading →

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Graphic Design Canon?

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Martha Scotford

Some of my first graphic design history research focussed on finding women designers, after I noticed they were missing. One way to discuss the ‘missing’ was to show how few had work published in some major GD history books. The … Continue reading →

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Cipe Pineles: 10th Pioneer?

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Martha Scotford

Early in my research about Cipe Pineles (which ultimately resulted in “Cipe Pineles: A Life of Design,” WW Norton, 1999), I decided that the book “Nine Pioneers in American Graphic Design” by Roger Remington and Barbara Hodik (MIT, 1989) should … Continue reading →

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Italian Political Design

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Martha Scotford

During a long stay in Italy, I became interested in the sophisticated design for political parties in Italy. Several prominent designers were engaged by different political parties to devise the images and messages in ways that never appear in the USA. … Continue reading →

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“For the Voice” Mayakovsky and Lissitzky

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Martha Scotford

Several years of research and graduate student experiments resulted in the publication of a facsimile edition of El Lissitzky’s designs for Mayakovsky’s poems, sometimes titled “For Reading Out Loud” and sometimes titled “For the Voice.” The final publication was a collaboration … Continue reading →

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Zwart’s Het Boek van PTT

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Martha Scotford

For inclusion in Steven Heller’s 2011 “I [heart] Design” I wrote about one of my favorite designs: an ingenious book for the Dutch post, telephone and telegraph office. Some spreads below.      

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Useable Design History

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Martha Scotford

About 1999, I participated in a small design history conference at Rochester Institute of Technology and presented this lecture and following workshop for design teachers. There are specific design examples mentioned; you probably know them or can find them easily … Continue reading →

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Review: Paul Rand, Conversations with Students

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Martha Scotford

Review of book for Eye magazine.

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Indian Design History, a provocation

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Martha Scotford

At a design history conference in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2004, I presented a paper discussing some problems of design history in post-colonial cultures. You can see the images shown in this rather large powerpoint.

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Design as System/Food as System

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Martha Scotford

As the first junior level design studio in our new curricular structure in 2008, Silas Munro and I took Food as our subject. This conference presentation describes the studio content and teaching method, and provides student examples.

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