Design Report
Historical or Contemporary female designers who have impacted the
design/creative industries
Throughout art history, there are a few notable examples of female graphic designers compared to the
wide range of male artists across all art mediums. This fact does not indicate female artists’
incompetence but rather the cultural and political climate which was not equal for working women. Historically they have been discouraged, often exiled from the artistic field as in all male-dominated professions. The primary roles of women were still very widely considered to be mothers and wives. So, I wanted to bring attention to at least two of a number of under-appreciated female designers who had to actively break into an industry that very rarely involved women. I chose Sore Popitz and Cipe Pineles as my primary research subjects. Some of my reasoning for choosing these female designers: they lived at the same time in different parts of the world but had quite a few similarities in terms of career trajectories. Most significantly, both achieved something that was never done before by women in the design industry. Most of my research was done on the internet. To get a better understanding of the history of women in graphic design and current situation regarding equality in the industry, I read Johnson & Wales University's student's Jaclyn Larsen’s college thesis "Finding Female Recognition: A Career Comparison of Female and Male Graphic Designers". It familiarised me with some important but forgotten female designers and provided me with an insight into thee industry as an aspiring graphic designer. To get a better understanding of Cipe Pineles's character and career timeline, I read her book "Leave Me Alone with the Recipes: The Life, Art, and Cookbook of Cipe Pineles". There was even less information on Sore Popitz. So, all of my research regarding her career was limited to various internet articles. There are two questions that I seek to answer through my research and analysis. How the cultural/ historical climate at the time impacted these women’s work, as well as career progression? And what impact did these designers leave after years in the industry?
Both Cipe Pineles and Sore Popitz had long lives and lived through some of the most significant
cultural and political changes in human history. That includes women’s role in society. When talking about significant graphic designers throughout history it is necessary to mention Cipe Pineles, an Austrian-born graphic designer and art director who worked for various iconic design publications in the United States since the 1930’s till her death in 1991. Attended Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn, early on showcasing signs of artistic expression and abilities. While studying there she won a fifty-dollar art scholarship from the Tiffany Foundation (established in 1918 by American designer Louis Comfort Tiffany to support promising art students). A non-negligible sum covered more than a third of the annual art school tuition at Pratt Institute, where in 1926 she enrolled. Graduated Pratt just before the devastating stock market crash of 1929 and was attempting to enter the workforce at the dawn of the Great Depression.
In her book she stated that her foreign name would help her get noticed in job hunts.
Condé Nast is home to some of the world's most iconic brands, including Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired, Architectural Digest (AD) and Condé Nast Traveler. She worked for Conde Nast many years, long enough to acquire art director’s and company’s designers’ respect, attention, and in turn receive further career opportunities. Through her time working for magazines she managed to bring fine art into mass media. For example, she managed to put her food related work and others into magazines such as Seventeen, Glamour, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. She did this by launching a new publication entitled Food & Drink. A painting she created of potatoes won an award from Art Director’s club in 1948. That same year she became the first woman member of the New York Art Director club. Notably, her husband, fellow graphic designer got asked to join first, but he stated
"Marriage is not a full-time occupation. Did you ever hear of a doctor or a lawyer giving up his profession because he was getting married?"
"I would drop my portfolio off at various advertising agencies. But the people who liked my work and were interested enough to ask me in for an interview had assumed by my name that I was a man! When they finally met me, they were disappointed, and I left the interview without a chance for the job."
In the 1920s Germany it was unheard of for a woman to participate in the graphic design industry. She left Bauhaus after one semester to work as a designer instead. Her early departure is often cited as a reason she emerged as a graphic designer while other female students did not: while women were progressively being accepted to the school and into the classrooms, they were often neglected, encouraged to go into weaving and textile design as opposed to male dominated fields of architecture and graphic arts. Popitz left, never reaching the point where she would have been ushered away from graphics into the weaving workshop. During the 1930’s, there was just one lifestyle magazine every woman had to have – Die Neue Linie. It featured tips for everything from fashion and home décor to sports. Art directed by the Bauhaus’ Herbert Bayer (Austrian American graphic designer, art director, one of the Bauhaus’ most influential students). Her work is heavily inspired by the Constructivism movement. Feature great emphasis on geometry, dark and limited colour palette, straying away from bright and pigmented colours. Her works often feature a female figure, combining colour with black and white photographs. Popitz’s work can be described as clean, while staying somewhat casual, quite minimal.
As of 2023, just .1% of creative agencies are founded by women. Despite the majority of graphic designers today being female, women hold 29% of creative director roles in the industry. Importance of their work is undeniable as they helped better many of the most famous design brands in the world, and they did it in a heavily male dominated industry and in a cultural and political climate when women were still restricted in their career pursuits, denied the same opportunities as their male-counterparts.
References:
Lehman, C. (2021). American Women in the 1950s | Womens Rights & Feminism in the
1950s - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com. [online] Available at:
https://study.com/learn/lesson/american-women-1950-rights-feminism.html. [Accessed 28
February 2023}
WIC - Women's History in America. 2023. [online] Available at:
http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm. [Accessed 28 February 2023].
Morley, M. (2019). Celebrating Söre Popitz, the Bauhaus’ Only Known Woman Graphic
Designer. [online] Eye on Design. Available at: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/sore-popitz-
meet-the-bauhauss-only-known-woman-graphic-designer/.
Wikipedia Contributors (2019). S. [online] Wikipedia. Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.