Who Designs?

Objective: Choose a graphic designer to research their career and methodology to create successful designs. Post writing to class forum and read and reflect on others’ research too.

Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell are an awardwinning duo for their photography and graphic design work. Their relationship stretches over 40 years when they first met each other at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Soon after, they got married and opened their first studio together in Boston. They’ve dabbled in different mediums, but the most successful has been their poster format. Skolos and Wedell have done branding for various events over the years, such as design student competitions, commercials, and festivals.

In addition to their unique crossover between photography and graphic design, Skolos and Wedell use aesthetics to get people thinking about bigger issues in the world and to expand their perspectives. Their humanitarian designs are created through collaged, 3D images, often based on modern forms of painting, technology, and architecture. They combine reason and emotion in each of their designs and want people to discover the meaning behind a piece of artwork. In 2017, the duo was awarded the AIGA (American Institute of Graphics Arts) Medal for their innovative and impactful designs.

More popular clients of this team include the Walker Art Center, Boston Acoustics, the US Department of Health and Human Resources, and the US Postal Service. One of the more popular designs by these two is their poster named “Light of Hope”. They created it for Indonesia after the country was hit by a tsunami in 2005. Their designs are more than just letters, symbols, and lines. They are communicating world issues through their work, hoping to make a difference and have people acknowledge others’ tragedies. Today, both Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell work at the Rhode Island School of Design.

I was drawn to the designer team of Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell, because of the realistic imagery that is incorporated into their posters and designs. There are a lot of different elements in their work, like color scales, technology, architecture, and collages. Every poster is interesting to look at and tells a deeper story the longer you look at it.

It was fun sharing information about the designers with my classmates. The research I gathered on these two designers was something new to share with them, and it expanded their knowledge of modern graphic design.