Famous Designers

PAULA SCHER

was born October 6th in 1948 in Washington D.C. She is an American graphic designers, painter and art educator in design. She was the first female principal at Pentagram and joined in 1991. She studied at the Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania where she graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In 1972 she was hired by CBS Records to the advertising and promotion department. She left after two years to go to Atlantic Records where she designed her first album covers as their art director. She returned later to CBS as their art director for covers. She created around 150 album covers a year for them. In 1982 she left Atlantic Records to work on her own. She started making her typefaces inspired by Russian constructivism. In 1984 she co-founded Koppel & Scher where identities, packaging, book jackets, and advertisements were produced. In 1991 because of the recession, she joined Pentagram where she has been since. 

ARMIN HOFMANN

was born June 29th, 1920. He is a Swiss graphic designer. His career began in 1947 when he taught at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel School of Art and Crafts when he was 26. He helped to develop Swiss Style graphic design. His teaching methods were considered unorthodox and broad based. He created books, exhibitions, stage sets, logotypes, symbols, typography, posters, sign systems, and environmental graphics. His work is recognized for its reliance on the fundamental elements of graphic form; point, line and shape. He is most well known for his posters which have been exhibited in galleries like MoMA. He wrote the Graphic Design Manual in 1965. 

STUDIO DUMBAR

is an international agency with a dutch heritage. They describe their work as “visual branding, online branding” which means they create every visible expression of a brand or organization on and off line. Design is at the heart of everything that they do. Their expertise are in strategy, communication, branding, and process-management. They look for the pure essence. Studio Dumbar attracts talented people from all around the world giving them an array of personalities and projects. Their home base is in Rotterdam in the Neverlands. They also have a liaison-office in Seoul, South Korea. An average team has 5 different nationalities and cultures. Their portfolio is diverse from business to government to culture to non-profit. Liza Enebeis is the Creative Director and Tom Dorresteijn is the CEO. This studio began in 1977 when Gert Dumbar founded it in The Hague. 

JOSEF MULLER BROCKMANN

grew up in Rapperswil, Switzerland. He attended the University of Zurich and Kunstgewerbeschule to study architecture, art, and design. He had an apprenticeship towards Walter Diggleman who was a designer and advertising consultant. In 1936, he opened his own Zurich studio which specialized in photography, graphics, and exhibition design.He was a leading practitioner and theorist of Swiss Style. He created a universal graphic express exploying a grid-based design exclusive of subjective feeling and extraneous illustration. He is known for the Musica viva poster that he created. He also co-founded New Graphic Design with H. Neuburg, R.P Lohse, and C. Vivarelli and was their co-editor from 1958-1965. This journal focused on Swiss Design and its publication for international readers. In the late 1950s he began a career as an art instructor. He taught, was a design consultants, and wrote several books on graphic design. 

HERBERT MATTER

was born in Switzerland in 1907 and died in 1984. He studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Geneva and at the Academie Moderne in Paris. He established himself as a talented graphic designer with a series of advertisements for the Swiss National Tourist Office. The campaign, which showed his sense of collage and skillful typesetting, is regarded as one of the great examples of 20th century graphic design. He immigrated to the United States and worked for a bit as a photographer in the offices of Charles and Ray Eames. Florence and Hans Knoll convinced him to move to New York to develop the Knoll graphics program. So from 1946-1966 he served as the primary design consultant for all Knoll graphics. He did many things like photography, advertising, catalog, and logo design. He is most remembered for his advertisements. His Womb Chair Chimney Sweep ad ran in the New Yorker for 13 years. He left Knoll and continued to work as a graphic designer and teacher at Yale University.