Paula Scher

1. What it is — a promotional poster for a Columbia/Epic jazz catalogue ("The Best of… on Columbia and Epic Records and Tapes"), 1979, lithograph, 91.1 × 68.9 cm (MoMA). Cooper Hewitt lists the year 1980 and a label "for New York Public Theater", which is a record error — the Public Theater doesn't appear until 15 years later. Poster Museum sells a 1994 reprint (97 × 74) and names the printer Toppan; this detail is not confirmed.
2. Composition — the whole format is a grid of two diagonals at ±45°. All the text sits on one of them: names (Ferguson, Humphrey, Hubert Laws, Return to Forever, Eric Gale, Stan Getz, Tom Scott, Gordon…) sit in bands that cross like planks. Four enormous letters B-E-S-T, black with a cream shadow, sit on the diagonal running from top-left to bottom-right and hold the whole composition together — without them the crisscrossed lines would read as empty. The eye enters at B (top left, the largest letter), jumps across the letters B-E-S-T diagonally down to T at bottom right, and only then reads the names. A thin red-black frame closes the format; a small round Columbia mark sits bottom left.
3. Colour — kraft-brown ground (the tone of the paper, not printed), black, red, cream. Red is reserved for the names and the frame, black for the four main letters and part of the names, cream for shadows and reversed bands. Three colours on brown produce four tones; the hierarchy runs by colour (black = headline) before it runs by size.
4. Typography — an American wood grotesque in several widths, condensed for the names, extra-expanded and shadowed for BEST. The typeface is not named anywhere. The contrast comes from width and from the shadow, not from mixing families — extreme width contrast is among the rarest typographic tools in use.
5. Message — "the best of all of these": a pile of names as a pile of supply, four letters as the verdict. Three seconds: BEST. Five metres: the diagonal kraft poster with red reads as an old circus bill, that is, as "jazz as American tradition", not as modernism.
6. Why exactly this way — with no budget for illustration, typography has to become the image. A historical quotation (the constructivist diagonal) was chosen as a ready-made system that allows twenty names with no hierarchy among them — because a hierarchy among the musicians would have been a political problem for the label.
7. What would kill it — aligning the names horizontally. The diagonal is the only reason twenty names don't look like a price list.

Principles: Historical quote as building material Grid holds chaos Cheap technique as language Rotation for fit, not rank To verify against the image: whether the cream shadow is a separate colour or the paper; the exact number of colours (Poster Museum: red, white, black, yellow — the MoMA image has no yellow).

1. What it is — poster, advertisement and window display for Swatch, Koppel & Scher, signed "Koppel & Scher with Herbert Matter". Brower gives 1984, most sources 1985; the museum record, dimensions and technique are not known. The PGDA record carries the date 5.12.2014 and the credit "Steven Brower" — that is the date and author of the article, not of the work; a frequent source of confusion.
2. Composition — Matter's photomontage taken as a whole: a smiling woman in a white cap fills the top half, two arms enter from bottom-left toward the face, behind them a snowy slope with tiny skiers. The change is in two things: three Swatch watches sit on the arms instead of a glove, and across the bottom half runs a huge red word SWATCH diagonally upward. Brower: the composition is Matter's, "recontextualised"; Retinart: the skier reshot, the text enlarged, the watch inserted.
3. Colour — Matter's register (black-and-white photograph, one hot colour) retained; red is both Swatch's and Matter's; blue appears only in the logotype.
4. Typography — SWATCH in red wood-type Egyptian, the letters stepping upward to the right, exactly like Matter's original lettering; the typeface is not named.
5. Message — "Swiss watch = Swiss poster": the parody only works if the viewer knows Matter. Brower: the poster hung in Swatch's boardroom — the audience was in on it. Three seconds: SWATCH. Five metres: it's "that Matter one".
6. Why exactly this way — Scher (Make It Bigger, via Retinart): "All through the eighties clients seemed to believe they were buying style, not thinking" — the work is at once a product of that condition and a joke at its expense. She sought permission from AIGA and the estate.
7. What would kill it — changing the composition "to make it her own". The joke is that nothing was changed except the watch.

Principles: Historical quote as building material Parody needs recognition To verify against the image: side by side with Matter (MoMA 5323) — whether the original is Pontresina 1935 or another Matter ski poster; the exact year is not confirmed.

1. What it is — seasonal poster for the Public Theater, 1995, lithograph, 152.4 × 114.3 cm (MoMA) — double the size of the posters for individual shows. MoMA describes it as a poster that "set a new bar for typography of the 1990s". This is the poster on which Noise/Funk first hit the street (Pentagram: 1995).
2. Composition — yellow-orange format, no margins. The left third is held by PUBLIC, vertical, ultra-condensed, top to bottom (letter height ≈ 85% of the format), with THE rotated above it and THEATER in red at the bottom. A photograph of Savion Glover (black and white, cut out, mid-jump) lies over the lower part of PUBLIC, x ≈ 15–50%, y ≈ 25–70%. The right two thirds are filled with a wall of show titles in every width, partly horizontal (NOISE, FUNK, 2 WOMEN, KING LEAR), partly rotated 90° (WASP, FRAGMENTS, DANCING ON HER KNEES, THE SKRIKER), so the letters stack like boards in an auction notice — no rectangle of empty space larger than the height of a lowercase letter. The eye moves to PUBLIC (biggest, vertical), jumps to Glover, then on through the titles from the largest (FUNK) downward. The bottom carries a red bar "MEMBERSHIP IS EASY! CALL 212-260-2400" across the whole format.
3. Colour — three: ground, black, red. Red is reserved for the institutional (95–96 SEASON, THEATER, phone number, membership) and for small "P" stamps — colour carries hierarchy (institution ≠ shows), it's not decoration. All the titles are black: the shows are thereby equal.
4. Typography — wood grotesque in five-six widths, all capitals. The PUBLIC logotype is Gothic (Nesbitt) per Fonts In Use (entry 2197). The other typefaces are not named. Contrast comes from width and rotation, not from family.
5. Message — "a lot is happening here and it's all public": noise as programme. At three seconds you read PUBLIC + a man mid-jump. At five metres the poster is recognisable even without reading — which is the definition of identity as behaviour.
6. Why exactly this way — Pentagram describes this as an identity for an institution with a mission to be "accessible"; wood type setting is "street typography". In practice: the theatre has no money for a photograph of every show, so the typography alone has to carry the poster, and the system has to work even when other designers run it — her sentence (Fonts In Use): "designed to be flexible, because we knew it would need to be handled by individual designers over the years".
7. What would kill it — margins and titles aligned into a column. Then this would be a layout, not Public, which is "loud and visible and urban".

Principles: Identity is behaviour, not a mark Wall of text as shape Rotation for fit, not rank Colour as hierarchy, not decoration To verify against the image: whether the small lines (writers, directors) are in the same typeface or in a grotesque of different origin; Glover's position in %.

1. What it is — poster for the solo show by Jenifer Lewis (written and performed by her; directed by Charles Randolph-Wright), Public Theater 1994, screenprint, 116.8 × 76.5 cm, printed by Ambassador Arts, New York (MoMA). One of the first three screenprint posters of the system (Him, Some People, Diva — all 1994, same printer, same format).
2. Composition — yellow format; blue duotone photograph of Lewis from forehead to chin, face taking up ≈ 80% of the width, eyes at y ≈ 48%. Across the lower half of the face, two black text bands in the background colour run diagonally from edge to edge and cross in an X over the mouth: "THE DIVA IS DISMISSED" rises up to the left, "written and performed by JENIFER LEWIS" falls down to the right; a third, shorter one, "LIMITED ENGAGEMENT NOW PLAYING", at bottom left. The PUBLIC logotype vertical in the upper right corner. The eyes are left free — the face looks out, the text covers its mouth: a show about a diva who's been "cancelled", and she still looks.
3. Colour — three: yellow ground, blue duotone, black. The yellow band isn't a new colour — it's the ground showing through a cut in the image. So the band doesn't read as pasted on but as cut out: the image is withheld where the text is.
4. Typography — black wood grotesque, condensed for the headline, narrower for the credits, all capitals; typeface not named. The bands run at ≈ 25–30°, not 45°.
5. Message — "diva" + covered voice = cancelled. Three seconds: blue face, X over the mouth. Five metres: yellow-blue poster with a black X — and that's enough.
6. Why exactly this way — three-colour screenprint is cheap and fast; a duotone photograph in one colour solves the problem of "no budget for colour". Same logic as Barbara Kruger (borrowed/cheap image + word), but the word isn't a label from outside, it's a cut in the image.
7. What would kill it — putting the bands over the eyes. Then the diva would be shut down (Reid), not dismissed.

Principles: Bar across the whole format Colour as hierarchy, not decoration Identity is behaviour, not a mark To verify against the image: the angle of the bands in degrees; whether the yellow band is identical to the ground (same separation) or a separate tone.

1. What it is — poster for Christopher Walken's drama "Him" (about Elvis; directed by Jim Simpson), Public Theater 1994, screenprint, 116.8 × 76.5 cm, Ambassador Arts (MoMA).
2. Composition — green format. The top ≈ 45% is taken up by a black pompadour hairstyle with a blue sheen, cut out as a silhouette — below it there's no face, just the green ground. "HIM" in magenta sits exactly where a forehead would be (y ≈ 52%), with two small lines of credits below. The bottom 40% is empty; the PUBLIC logotype vertical at bottom right. The eye travels: hair → HIM → emptiness.
3. Colour — four: green, black, blue (sheen), magenta. Magenta appears on only one word — the smallest area, the strongest colour, hence the title. Green and magenta are a complementary pair, so the word vibrates.
4. Typography — HIM in magenta extra-extended wood grotesque, word width ≈ 45% of the format; font not named.
5. Message — Elvis without Elvis: the hairstyle is enough, the face is anyone's (Walken's, the audience's). Three seconds: hair + HIM. Five metres: black hair on green.
6. Why exactly this way — there was no permission or budget for Elvis's likeness; and besides, the show is about "him" as myth, not as a person. The absence of a face is the content.
7. What would kill it — drawing a face. Or writing ELVIS.

Principles: One image, one word White space as shape Fragment instead of a face To verify against the image: whether the blue highlight is a separate separation; the exact text of the credits.

1. What it is — poster for Danny Hoch's solo show (directed by Jo Bonney), Public Theater 1994, lithograph, 117.1 × 76.9 cm, Ambassador Arts (MoMA).
2. Composition — black format. Two full-height figures of the same actor: a red one leaning to the left, a blue one to the right — together they make a V, two characters out of one man. The text doesn't sit on the figures but in the space they leave: SOME vertical in the upper left corner, PEOPLE horizontal across the top, the credit in the wedge between the bodies, "NOW PLAYING! LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!" rotated along the right edge. The letters change width and direction to fill the gap — the same gesture as in work 03, but here the bodies make the gap.
3. Colour — four: black, red, blue, ochre. Red and blue are the figures (duotone = costume), ochre is the text; nothing overlaps.
4. Typography — ochre wood grotesque, condensed (SOME, NOW PLAYING) and extended (PEOPLE); typeface not named.
5. Message — "some people" = several people in one; one actor, two colours. Three seconds: red and blue figure on black. Five metres: a V made of two men.
6. Why exactly this way — a solo show with multiple characters needs a visual equivalent: one actor, one photograph, two separations — cheaper than two photographs, more accurate than one.
7. What would kill it — the text in a rectangular block above the figures. Then the figures would become an illustration alongside the title, whereas here they are the layout itself.

Principles: Rotation for fit, not rank White space as shape Colour as hierarchy, not decoration To verify against the image: not confirmed whether the left figure is a mirror of the right (same photograph) or a different pose.

1. What it is — poster for a Broadway transfer of a production (Ambassador Theatre, 219 W 49th St, Tele‑charge), 1996; AD Paula Scher, design Scher + Lisa Mazur, typeface "American Wood Type" (AIGA record); PGDA lists it as a lithograph, "circa 1995". No dimensions given. This is the SECOND version: the first (1995, Public, Pentagram) is on season poster 03. AIGA notes that the campaign became "more anonymous" over time, so that other dancers could take over Glover's role. PGDA record 17113 ("1995") has no image.
2. Composition — white format (the only white one in the series). NOISE blue, FUNK red — the two largest words, one upper left, the other upper right, each ≈ 40% of the width. Glover (black‑and‑white photograph, cut out, tap‑dancing) in the middle, y ≈ 15–70%. All the rest is a wall of review quotes, in black wood grotesque in five‑six widths, partly horizontal, partly rotated 90° — "A JOYOUS MEDITATION ON TAP", "STUNNING!", "HEROIC!" — quotes fill every empty corner around the figure. Bottom: a black strip with address and phone across the whole format, red Tele‑charge circle. Reading order: FUNK (red) → Glover → NOISE → quotes.
3. Colour — four: white, black, blue, red. Blue and red only on the two title words — everything else black. Colour again signals rank.
4. Typography — American wood grotesque (AIGA), capitals, widths from ultra‑condensed to extended. The specific typeface is not named.
5. Message — "everyone says it's great": quotes as noise, noise as theme (noise/funk). Three seconds: NOISE / FUNK / a man in motion. Five metres: blue‑red title on white.
6. Why exactly this way — Broadway demands review quotes; instead of hiding them at the bottom, she turns them into a wall — which is what wood‑type auction advertising already does. White background: the Broadway poster also has to work as a newspaper ad.
7. What would kill it — quotes in small serif at the bottom. Then it's an ordinary theatre ad, and the Public system disappears.

Principles: Wall of text as shape Rotation for fit, not rank Identity is behaviour, not a mark Colour as hierarchy, not decoration To verify against the image: exact dimensions (Broadway "one‑sheet" 27 × 41 in?); whether the photograph is the same as on 03.

1. What it is — one of a series of artist posters commissioned by the National Theatre for its 50 years (since the Old Vic), 2013, screenprint, 88 × 62 cm, numbered and signed, gift of the National Theatre. V&A description: "the letters National Theatre printed in a large, black format".
2. Composition — format divided into a 3 × 5 grid of fields (white fields on a light grey background, thin grey gaps). One letter per field, black, stretched or compressed until it fills the field: NAT / ION / ALT / HEA / TRE. The word breaks by grid, not by syllable — "ALT", "HEA". The A has no crossbar (two legs and a triangle), the O is a disc with a dot, the T occupies the whole field. The grid holds 15 letters that would otherwise be incomparable; signature and numbering in pencil below.
3. Colour — two: black and white (plus grey background). No accent — the system itself is its own colour.
4. Typography — extra‑bold grotesque, probably drawn per field (the letter widths don't come from a single cut — each letter has a different width‑to‑height ratio). The typeface is not named. Here the rule "fill the field, vary the widths to the extreme" is carried through to the end: one letter = one field.
5. Message — the institution's name as a wall; it only reads once you accept the grid. Three seconds: a black block of 15 letters. Five metres: a raster of black shapes — typography as architecture. The National Theatre is a Brutalist building; this link is not documented, it is a reading of the work.
6. Why exactly this way — the series' constraint (same format for multiple artists) and single‑colour screenprint; the answer to that constraint is a typeface that behaves, not an image.
7. What would kill it — breaking the word by syllable (NA‑TIO‑NAL). Then it's a typographic poster; as it is, it's an object.

Principles: Wall of text as shape Word breaks along the grid One variable to failure Grid holds chaos To verify against the image: field measurements in %; whether the background is grey or that's a photograph of the print on grey.