As I’ve become more familiar with the graphic design and typography “world,” and begun to identify more of my favorite artists and type designers (Robert Slimbach, Matthew Carter, David Carson…) I’ve started to wonder why I don’t have more female role models.
The other day I happened upon this fantastic video (I highly recommend it) of a panel discussion on the art of the book, with Milton Glaser, Chip Kidd, and Dave Eggers, moderated by Michael Beirut. I’m very familiar with all of their work, and all four of them are some of my top heroes – my idols! The coolest, savviest, most interesting designers I know! And seeing all of them together in the same room talking about book design, it was a real treat. Until the very end during a Q & A, when there was a question about why there were so few female “superstar” graphic designers – “is there a glass ceiling in graphic design?” Milton Glaser’s response:
He said that the reason there are so few female rock star graphic designers is that “women get pregnant, have children, go home and take care of their children. And those essential years that men are building their careers and becoming visible are basically denied to women who choose to be at home.” He continued: “Unless something very dramatic happens to the nature of the human experience then it’s never going to change.” About day care and nannies, he said, “None of them are good solutions.”
The crowd was silent except for a hiss or two and then Eggers piped up that he and his wife both work from home and share child care responsibilities — but added that maybe New York was different (although we don’t think Eggers really believes this). Then it was clear to everyone in the room that it was time to move on.
In Helvetica (the greatest movie ever) why are only two of the two dozen interviews with women?
Shira asked me once when the first time I was really conscious of my gender was. There are probably some times in my youth that I can’t clearly recall (other kids questioning whether I could play Huck Finn because I was a girl), I think the first time was in a class my freshman year of high school. After completing a month’s worth of assignments for an Intro to Technology class in one day, my parents and teachers realized something should be done. So I was transferred into Visual Communication, where I was the only freshman and the only girl. I thrived on the material, but I felt really uncomfortable and out of place in that environment.
I’ve take a number of computer and technology oriented classes in both high school and college, and I’ve always been in the minority. I think it always made me subconsciously want to work harder, to prove that I could be as good or better than the boys.
Graphic Design, Feminism, and Me – Part 2: what I’ve learned from doing design and animation on the documentary film Heretics: Stories from a Feminist Art Collective for the past two years… coming soon.
-Molly
(p.s. if you read this, you should comment! the more you comment on our blog, the happier we will be, and the more often we will update. it’s nice to know when your writing is read.)
February 3, 2009 at 5:21 pm
What struck me while watching Helvetica was not that most (all?) of the typographers are male, but that they represented the senecense of modernism itself.
I don’t know Glaser, but it’s surprising that he didn’t get the memo. Kudos to Eggers for being progressive. The awkwardness of that exchange reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIUzLpO1kxI (except, somehow, I think historians have vindicated West, to co-opt Bush’s own mantra)
Incidentally, I saw this posted on the Slog yesterday, excerpted from AHBWOSG:
“This is a president that, fuck, we have some sort of crush on this man. He speaks like a president, not always authoritative or anything but he can form sentences, complex sentences with beginnings and ends, subordinate clauses—you can hear his semicolons! He knows the answers to questions. He knows acronyms and the names of foreign leaders, their deputies. It is heartening, it makes our country look smart, and this is an important thing, something we have too long been without.… Toph, I would say, Toph, this man is actually bright, could be brilliant. This man still read books; encyclopedic and charming and so seemingly real… and though we hope that he is real even if he is not entirely real he is more real, and smart enough to seem real, and wins both ways…”
February 3, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Comment!
Huh, that is kind of weird. I tend to have the exact opposite, since I dance and do psych/child development (a very female field).
Well, if it’s any consolation, when I think of graphic designers, I always think of you first. So for me, women are the best in the field!
February 5, 2009 at 3:43 am
I have my calendar marked for a lecture on women in the transportation field happening in March. There’s also an odd tension between the “soft” aspects of policy and investigating social and environmental concerns, and that “hard” engineering and drafting aspects. Does conforming into the soft side, more typical of women, make one a less progressive woman? Of course not, but it could feel that way.
February 5, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I hear you. I was really good at science in high school, and get really excited about it even now, but have always felt uncomfortable in science class rooms, which always had male teachers and it just seemed intimidating, so i stick with what i know i’m already good at! which i’m happy with, but i sometimes wonder what would have happened if i had decided to study physics or chemistry instead. it’s always inspiring to know and see women working in male dominated spaces, such as yourself and the sciency ladies i know.
you are in europe by now!