Paul Shaw is a designer and a design historian. For three decades he has researched and written about the history of graphic design with a focus on typography, lettering and calligraphy. He is the recipient of scholarships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. In 2002 he was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
Although trained as an historian, Shaw has concurrently spent much of his career as a graphic designer. For nearly thirty years his firm Paul Shaw / Letter Design has executed calligraphy, hand lettering and typographic design for department stores, cosmetic companies, food conglomerates, universities, advertising agencies, design studios and others. His work has won awards from the Type Directors Club, AIGA, New York Art Directors Club, and others. He has designed or co-designed 18 typefaces, among them Kolo, Donatello, and Old Claude.
He is the author of Helvetica and the New York City Subway System (2009), the editor of The Eternal Letter (2015), and the co-editor of Blackletter: Type and National Identity (1999).
Although trained as an historian, Shaw has concurrently spent much of his career as a graphic designer. For nearly thirty years his firm Paul Shaw / Letter Design has executed calligraphy, hand lettering and typographic design for department stores, cosmetic companies, food conglomerates, universities, advertising agencies, design studios and others. His work has won awards from the Type Directors Club, AIGA, New York Art Directors Club, and others. He has designed or co-designed 18 typefaces, among them Kolo, Donatello, and Old Claude.
He is the author of Helvetica and the New York City Subway System (2009), the editor of The Eternal Letter (2015), and the co-editor of Blackletter: Type and National Identity (1999).
Sessions
Paper is Part of the Picture: Strathmore Paper and the Promotion of Paper from the Arts & Crafts Era to the New Deal
Monday, May 4 • 1:15 – 2:00pm
From 1900 to 1930 American paper companies, slowly shifted from selling paper as a commodity to promoting it as an essential design element. Strathmore Paper, one of the two firms leading this effort, relied almost exclusively on well-known designers, illustrators and typographers to show printers how paper was more than a substrate, but an element on a par with illustrations and type. This talk will trace Strathmore’s advertising and promotional efforts during this time with a focus on two key campaigns, “Paper Is Part of the Picture” and Strathmore Town. Among the designers and illustrators whose work will be showcased will be Will Bradley, Frederic W. Goudy, Fred G. Cooper, T.M. Cleland, W.A. Dwiggins, Helen Dryden and Walter Dorwin Teague.
