Category Archives: Design History

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 →

Posted in Design History, Ernst Reichl, Typography | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Design History, Women in Design | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Cipe Pineles, Design History, Women in Design | Leave a comment

“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 →

Posted in Design History, Typography | Leave a comment

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.      

Posted in Design History, Typography | Leave a comment

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.

Posted in Design History, Design in India | Leave a comment

“…Messy History vs Neat History”

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Martha Scotford

“Toward an expanded view of women in graphic design: messy history vs neat history,” Visible Language, Fall 1994. Read the article here.

Posted in Design History, Women in Design | Comments Off on “…Messy History vs Neat History”

“Cipe Pineles: a life of design”

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Martha Scotford

This 1999 book provides the only full story of Pineles’ life and work, from immigration from Austria as a teenager, through education at Pratt, working for Dr. Agha, first independent woman art director for several magazines, teaching at Parsons, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Cipe Pineles, Design History, Women in Design | Comments Off on “Cipe Pineles: a life of design”