Citi Bank. Leonard Bernstein. The Public Theater. Bloomberg.

Paula Scher | (Pentagram)

If I told you all these were connected by one element, you’d be hard pressed to guess what that thing was. A group of people clustered together in the dark, Thursday night at the Roper Center in Downtown Norfolk, got the answer.

As part of a collaboration between our local AIGA chapter and Tidewater Community College, we were treated to an earful and eyeful of Paula Scher, an inspirational woman who has contributed immensely to the design world. Bringing Scher in as a speaker was timely, since a reception for Women in Design exhibit is being held Friday, June 4, at the TCC Visual Arts Center. Women in Design is just one of many similar shows throughout the state that fall under the Minds Wide Open initiative. It’s a huge push to celebrate the accomplishments of women in this field, but Scher drew a laugh from the audience at the very beginning, saying that women had made such an indelible mark in the design industry since she started her career that we’ll soon need to host a “Men in Design” event.

“I’ll also come down for that one,” she quipped.

Scher's first sketch for Citi logo | (Scher/Pentagram)

In the spirit of full disclosure, I ended up at The Roper Center because the designer in my family wasn’t able to find a better date. My wife told me Paula Scher was this amazing designer she was dying to see, so 15 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settled into a comfy seat at The Roper, waiting for something amazing. It’s always a good thing to be pleasantly surprised in life, to get more than one bargains for, and that was certainly my experience with Paula Scher. The brief bio she presented began with a photo of the house she lived in during the ’50s, a humble suburban rancher in Silver Spring, MD. One major theme of Scher’s career began here, as she reminisced about the houses looking the same and the people in the houses having expectations imposed on them by society. Not conforming became a passion with Scher, even as she allowed there was a high degree of luck involved in her career. Arriving in New York City with 50 dollars and a portfolio, Scher then landed a job with Random House illustrating children’s books, which turned into a job with CBS and Atlantic designing ads and album covers, which led eventually to joining the major design collective Pentagram.

Paula Scher showed over 200 slides during her presentation, but none of us were checking our watches. The power of her work was incredible, whether she was showing poster designs projected larger-than-life, or environmental designs compressed to fit on the screen.

Designers that knew her work well had the benefit of hearing stories about the context of each piece, the creative struggles involved in bringing design to life, and the political complexities of sustaining a viable brand identity. Scher touched on the importance of reinventing oneself, the special quality of breakthrough creative moments, and the delicate balance between designing for private and public institutions.

A Q&A session after the presentation generated some good questions. Asked about whether corporate malfeasance makes it more difficult for her to support some clients, Scher stated that while there is some work (tobacco, alcohol) she rejects, she finds the current trends around “art for the public good” to be too confining.

Detail of Scher's 'NYC Transit' painting | (Scher/Pentagram)

Possibly her most provocative idea of the night was that difficult causes are where creatives are most needed, if for no other reason than to prevent the perpetuation of bad design. Another great question for Scher centered on how her concept of challenging the status quo might inform efforts to help Norfolk grow outside its comfort zone. Scher’s suggestions were to pry away at stubborn tradition with persistence, precedent, and inspiration.

Speaking with some knowledge of what it takes to work successfully with municipalities and public institutions, Scher said that cities feel much better about changing when they see similar changes were successful in other places.

Women in Design (running May 8th – June 24th at the TCC Visual Arts Center) features work from Paula Scher, Margo Chase, Louise Fili, Karin Fong, Carin Goldberg, April Greiman, Rebeca Mendez, Lisa Strausfeld, and Deborah Sussman. If you missed seeing Scher at The Roper, you can make up for the loss by navigating to 340 High Street in Olde Towne Portsmouth June 4 at 7pm, or by visiting the exhibit before it closes on June 24. While you’re there, give someone from TCC a hug for supporting creative talent of this magnitude in the area, and be sure to give a shout-out to our local AIGA chapter for the major role they play in promoting events like this.