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Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History
Baseline Shift captures the untold stories of women across time who used graphic design to earn a living while changing the world.
Baseline Shift centers diverse women across backgrounds whose work has shaped, shifted, and formed graphic design as we know it today. From an interdisciplinary book designer and calligrapher starting out in Harlem's Renaissance, to the invisible drafters of Monotype's drawing office, the women represented here include auteurs, advocates for social justice, and creators ahead of their time. The fifteen essays in this illustrated collection come from contributors with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Baseline Shift is essential reading for students and practitioners of graphic design, as well as anyone with an interest in women's history.
Baseline Shift centers diverse women across backgrounds whose work has shaped, shifted, and formed graphic design as we know it today. From an interdisciplinary book designer and calligrapher starting out in Harlem's Renaissance, to the invisible drafters of Monotype's drawing office, the women represented here include auteurs, advocates for social justice, and creators ahead of their time. The fifteen essays in this illustrated collection come from contributors with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Baseline Shift is essential reading for students and practitioners of graphic design, as well as anyone with an interest in women's history.
192 pages, Paperback
Published October 26, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 27, 2023
This book took me a while to read because I'd only open it on my commute to work. But WOW. It's amazing to read about how so many women who contributed to the major design movements. It's also sad to read that not a lot was documented about women's work in design as some of the authors would come up with dead ends in trying to discover the women history wrote over.
As I reflect on my design education, I realize that a lot of designers that get upheld are white men who embodied Swiss design and put Bauhaus on a pedestal. But women are rarely included in those narratives. I think maybe I studied one...maybe two women designers in my education (Paula Scher for sure). Diversity and inclusion in design history starts in the classroom and in the leadership of agencies. Books like these lift up the women of design history.
Less design school assignments about Josef Müller-Brockmann and more about women like Norma Kitson and Söre Popitz.
As I reflect on my design education, I realize that a lot of designers that get upheld are white men who embodied Swiss design and put Bauhaus on a pedestal. But women are rarely included in those narratives. I think maybe I studied one...maybe two women designers in my education (Paula Scher for sure). Diversity and inclusion in design history starts in the classroom and in the leadership of agencies. Books like these lift up the women of design history.
Less design school assignments about Josef Müller-Brockmann and more about women like Norma Kitson and Söre Popitz.
December 11, 2021
This book is stunning! I was engrossed with every essay and spent time within each one going to the works cited to bookmark them for further research. All fields have for too long been dominated by men, and white men in particular. This book is by no means the end of the process toward rectifying this, but it is an absolute gem and a deeply needed exploration of the voices, works and individuals who have been left out of design. This compilation explores so many amazing women designers, typographers, art directors etc… this belongs on every serious designer and artist’s shelf.
I also wanted to include a quotation that really made me pause and reflect from the chapter “Press On! Feminist Historiography of Print Culture and Collective Organizing” by MMS (Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark, & Sara Kaaman):
“…as the British cultural theorist Angela McRobbie has proposed, the concept of creativity and the identification with and ideal of being creative in one’s professional role has served as a political propaganda tool in the United Kingdom. She believes that the so-called creative ideal—which weirdly suggests that some professions are more creative than others—produces an individualist self-employed worker who above all loves to work, regardless of financial compensation and working conditions. McRobbie believes that this ideal worker affects conditions for all jobholders, who are expected to adapt to and behave like this figure. Today, there is a strong narrative—perpetuated through advertising, TV, and social media—that equates freedom with working on your laptop in a café, on your phone on the bus, or just about anywhere. Women and Black and Indigenous People of Color are the people most affected by this deterioration in living and working conditions and the demand for flexibility.”
I also wanted to include a quotation that really made me pause and reflect from the chapter “Press On! Feminist Historiography of Print Culture and Collective Organizing” by MMS (Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark, & Sara Kaaman):
“…as the British cultural theorist Angela McRobbie has proposed, the concept of creativity and the identification with and ideal of being creative in one’s professional role has served as a political propaganda tool in the United Kingdom. She believes that the so-called creative ideal—which weirdly suggests that some professions are more creative than others—produces an individualist self-employed worker who above all loves to work, regardless of financial compensation and working conditions. McRobbie believes that this ideal worker affects conditions for all jobholders, who are expected to adapt to and behave like this figure. Today, there is a strong narrative—perpetuated through advertising, TV, and social media—that equates freedom with working on your laptop in a café, on your phone on the bus, or just about anywhere. Women and Black and Indigenous People of Color are the people most affected by this deterioration in living and working conditions and the demand for flexibility.”
January 19, 2022
I did really enjoy this book, and I also really enjoyed how it was laid out and designed (which, since it's about graphic designers, is probably pretty fundamentally necessary).
Like any anthology of essays, I did think that some essays were better written than others, but I really enjoyed the amount of information and names that I hadn't yet encountered in my graphic design studies.
My one criticism is that I think that they front-loaded their WOC designers, so while it was really cool to read about a Ho-Chunk designer and a few Black designers at the start of the book, it was almost uniformly White designers afterwards.
Like any anthology of essays, I did think that some essays were better written than others, but I really enjoyed the amount of information and names that I hadn't yet encountered in my graphic design studies.
My one criticism is that I think that they front-loaded their WOC designers, so while it was really cool to read about a Ho-Chunk designer and a few Black designers at the start of the book, it was almost uniformly White designers afterwards.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews