To commemorate the sesquitennial, the Yale School of Art commissioned Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Caroline M. Street Professor of Graphic Design, Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design, and a 1964 alumnus of the Graphic Design program, and Laura Coombs, 2017 Graphic Design alumnus and Senior Designer at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, to create an anniversary mark that both celebrates and conveys the profound history of the School. Rather than creating a singular symbol, the designers collected a range of 150 interchangeable marks constructed with typefaces made by students, alumni, and faculty of the School of Art. In a visual representation of the breadth and pace of the School’s contributions to the development of graphic design specifically, and visual culture more broadly, these 150 marks race past one another, revealing a continuity of difference in an accelerated assembly of typographic inquiry.
Intended to honor the diversity within gender among designers and artists, the mark includes a background color field which blends from pink to lavender to blue. The designers expect to add other ranges of hues and letterforms to the mark’s ongoing development, in a statement on the continued and ever-developing trajectory of design and art history. “By collecting 150 typefaces drawn by Yale School of Art graphic design students, alumni, and faculty, and placing the words against a blended color background,” said the designers, “our intention is to create a visual statement of unending potential and accomplishment among past and future generations continually at work here at the Yale School of Art.”
The mark also serves as a springboard for a forthcoming publication of typeface specimens created by School of Art faculty and alumni. To be released in 2020, this book will illustrate the historical breadth of typographic design at the School of Art.
In addition to serving as an insignia of celebration, the 150th mark will also be used as the visual element anchoring a series of upcoming public talks and engagements planned for the Yale School of Art’s academic year.
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Designers
in alphabetical order, by last name
• Julian Bittiner '08 and Senior Critic in Graphic Design
• Matthew Carter, Senior Critic in Graphic Design
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