LOUISE SANDHAUS

CO-DIRECTOR/FOUNDER

THE PEOPLE’S GRAPHIC DESIGN ARCHIVE, LOS ANGELES CA

Louise Sandhaus is a graphic designer and faculty member at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Her design office, LSD, working with partners Tim Durfee and Iris Anna Regn, was known for its ground-breaking approach to art museum exhibition design, including shows for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA Hammer Museum, Center for Photography in New York, and others. She is the founder and co-director of The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a crowd-sourced virtual archive that aims to expand, diversify, and preserve graphic design history. Her book on the history of California graphic design, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936-1986, was published in 2014 by Metropolis Books and Thames & Hudson. It received laudatory attention from The New York Times, The Guardian (London), and The Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others. In 2015, the book received the Palm D’argent from The International Art Book and Film Festival (FILAF). In 2019, A Colorful Life: Gere Kavanaugh, Designer, co-written and designed with Kat Catmur, was published by Princeton Architectural Press and was the subject of a full-page L.A. Times article. She is a 2022 AIGA medalist.

Looking forward to 2023, are you optimistic about the role and impact of Graphic Design and Visual Communication in Business? Culture? Causes? Why do you feel that way? Have the events and disruptions of the past few years changed the role or trajectory of Graphic Design?

We are in a moment of disruption that, hopefully, will profoundly impact design and culture. Designers globally have been taught principles of design and visual language originating from European Modernism. But in the last few years, the multitude of other visual languages from communities and cultures that have been overlooked have become visible. This recognition is changing what design looks like, who makes design, and who design is for. This is also part of another significant change — crowdsourcing — with everyone invited to have a voice and to participate.