Deborah Sussman
Deborah Sussman | |
|---|---|
 Sussman in 2013 | |
| Born | May 26, 1931 |
| Known for | Environmental graphic design |
| Notable work | 1984 Summer Olympics |
| Awards | AIGA medal (2004) |
Deborah Sussman (May 26, 1931 - August 20, 2014) is an American designer and a pioneer in the field of environmental graphic design.[1][2] Her work incorporates graphic design into architectural and public spaces.
Early life and education
Deborah Sussman was born in Brooklyn on May 26, 1931.[3] Her father was a skilled commercial artist. She took classes at the Art Students League and attended summer school at Black Mountain College in 1948. She studied acting and painting at Bard College in New York. She then attended the Institute of Design in Chicago where she studied graphic design.[3]
Career
Sussman's career started in the offices of Charles and Ray Eames, where she worked as an office designer beginning around 1953. She spent about 10 years with the Eameses and became art director for the office, designing print materials, museum exhibits, films, and showrooms for furniture.[3] Sussman designed instructions for the card construction game House of Cards[4] and traveled to Mexico to document folk culture for the Eameses' 1957 film Day of the Dead.[5] During that time she became one of the most well known designers on the West Coast.[6] She won a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her to study at the Ulm School of Design in Germany.[7]
Sussman started her own practice in 1968. She met architect and urban planner Paul Prejza in 1972 and married him that year.[3] Sussman and Prejza formed the firm Sussman/Prejza & Co. in 1980. They specialized in urban branding and designed the look and architectural landscape of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.[8] In Stylepedia, authors Steven Heller and Louise Fili wrote that the graphical elements of that Olympics "epitomized a carnivalesque modernity" and placed the work in the Pacific branch of the New Wave design movement.[9] The firm also designed Hasbro's New York facility, and has worked with the City of Santa Monica, the Museum of the African Diaspora, Disney World, and McCaw Hall. The company was later renamed Sussman-Prejza.
Sussman is known for her bold and colorful work that sometimes integrates typography in the environmental landscape.[8]
Sussman received an AIGA medal in 2004.[7]
References
- ^ Heller, Steven (2011). I Heart Design: Remarkable Graphic Design Selected by Designers, Illustrators, and Critics. Beverly, Mass.: Rockport Publishers. p. 180. ISBN 978-1-61058-032-8.
- ^ Poulin, Richard (2012). Graphic Design and Architecture, A 20th Century History. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-59253-779-2.
- ^ a b c d Walker, Alissa (2011). "Sussman, Deborah". The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 620–621. ISBN 978-0-19-533579-8.
- ^ "Artist Interviews: Deborah Sussman". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
- ^ Aynsley, Jeremy (2011). "Developing a Language of Vision: Graphic Design in California". California Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-262-01607-0.
- ^ Berger, Craig M. (2009). "The Wayfinding Designer". The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-56898-769-9.
- ^ a b "Deborah Sussman". AIGA. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
- ^ a b LLC Pantone; Leatrice Eiseman; Keith Recker (1 November 2011). Pantone: The Twentieth Century in Color. Chronicle Books. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-4521-1313-5.
- ^ Heller, Steven; Fili, Louise (2006). "New Wave". Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. p. 220. ISBN 978-0-8118-3346-2.