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an observation of the new challenges as a design consultant and an instructor at the Parsons New School of Design
ISSUE TWO
Table of Contents
The End and the BEGINNING
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As Cipe began to reach the end of her days as the art director for many magazines, a new era of her career developed.
Pineles to PARSONS How Cipe ended up leaving her love for print behind and moving on to new endeavors working on branding projects.
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The journey Cipe made to a teacher as she led the publication department of the Parsons School of Design and produced some of her most successful projects with her students
The Legacy of CIPE PINELES
Pineles on a design jury
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THE END
& THE BEGINNING
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THAT MOMENT ON WAS SOMEWHAT OF A RUT FOR PINELES’ CAREER. She had taken yet another art director position at Mademoiselle magazine just before Golden died and her time there was described as “not a great success,” (Scotford, 104) according to her assistant Roger Schoening. And though she struggled to be as passionate about Mademoiselle as much as she was with her previous publications, Pineles still managed to propel the magazine forward as it received an exceptional amount of recognition for its visual direction. She made a variety of various typographic style changes to the magazine but still struggled with the editor-in-chief to acknowledge most of the other significant changes she wanted to make.
BY 1960, SHE WAS NO LONGER AT MADEMOISELLE.
CP: The P OST-PR INT PHA SE
WHAT FOLLOWED FROM
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Pineles then pursued other opportunities in the graphic design discipline, leaving her comfort zone of publication art direction for in-house work and teaching. Starting work for the Lincoln Center in 1965, she began to take on the responsibility of systemizing their brand and promotional work. What they initially had was a clutter of materialsone program would have one look to it while the other would have something different. Starting with the letterheads, Pineles unified a broader aspect overlooking the Center’s programs by utilizing her commonly used condensed Bodoni in combination with a
Grotesque sans serif typeface. She was then appointed the lead design consultant for the Center and from there, expanded to adjusting their logo type and identity systems by taking cues from the architecture of the various building and translating it into the letters of her typefaces. She also worked on the design of The Lincoln Center Journal, in which she approached in a more progressive manner in comparison to her work at Mademoiselle, Seventeen and Charm and her work received a copious amount of awards and recognition. She remained with the Center until 1970.
Right: From 1968 e June th f ill o an d W c o v er g ineles raphic Typog gn by both P e Performin r th 69 desi nter fo ort 1956-19 e issue, C ln ; Linco mmar y Rep Burtin Arts Su
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At the 1951 American Institute of Graphic Arts magazine design jury with editor of architectural magazines, James M. FItch, to her right.
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Linocln Center journal cover for April 1968 for the student exhibition
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Pineles as an instructor at the Parsons 1984 fall Editorial Design class
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And while her time at the Lincoln Center was a new realm for Pineles work to expand to new horizons, she also had a significant presence as both a teacher and director at the Parsons School of Design. She worked as an instructor in publication design in while at the Lincoln Center, starting in 1962 and becoming director of publication design in 1967. Just as she did for the Lincoln Center, Pineles systematized their brand and identity across the board by applying more modern characteristics such as Helvetica and Futura in the letterheads and promotional materials, creating a more modern and clean look.
CP: The P OST-PR INT PHA SE
Pineles at PARSONS
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Spreads from Pineles’ successful 1973 yearbook project with her students, The Bread Book.
As a teacher, Pineles taught her students the importance of space and structure; as a supervisor of Parsons annual yearbook she oversaw the production of the student-run publication from start to finish. Enter the Parsons Bread Book, which initially began as any other yearbook and evolved into a passionate project for both Pineles and her students. Through the metaphor of bakeries starting their bread from scratch to pulling the final product out of the oven, Pineles and her student team conveyed the idea of process in the book. The Bread Book became one of the school’s best-selling publications reaching sales of 60,000 copies overall. This subsequently led to a surge in recognition and attention towards the school and was arguably Pineles’ best promotional work yet.
Pineles and David Levy, Dean and CEO of Parsons at the time, watching on as students present to a visiting critic.
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THE LEGACY of Cipe Pineles What the path that Pineles set means for the female creatives for the 21st century and on.
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CP: The P OST-PR INT PHA SE
Portrait of Pineles during the time for when she was elected to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame
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Pineles and her baby Tom Golden at home; note the botanical illustrations hanging on the wall
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She concluded her life-long career after Parsons and from then on had been continuously recognized for her work and success. Having achieved a multitude of feats throughout her lifetime, it is safe to say that Cipe Pineles was a pivotal individual for not just the graphic design and publication industries, but was also a shining example for young women she taught and inspired. However, this is not to say that Pineles underwent the same amount of stresses and personal problems just as any other human being would. While her career may have been a fairly successful, yet painstaking one, this was all achieved with the responsibilities of other aspects of her life resting on her shoulders. During her time as an art director
at various successful magazines, Pineles was widowed twice, struggled with infertility and even attempted suicide at one point. However, she was the epitome of a driving force- her determination to solve the various design problems in front of her kept her occupied and her mind at bay, channeling her positive energy into her work, which certainly paid off. She was an extroverted individual who had a “magnetic presence and influence [that] was as strong as her graphic imprint,� (Ellis and Fripp, 22) according to Ellis. This trait came to be very valuable being that collaboration was a major aspect she utilized during her many roles as an art director, design consultant and teacher.
CP: The P OST-PR INT PHA SE
At the Charm offices
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What makes her so special in the design industry is not strictly just about what she made, but what she said through her work, giving true meaning to the practice of “communications design.” The significance of adding a voice to her involvement at magazines such as Seventeen and Charm were pivotal- she and Estelle Ellis and Helen Valentine were pioneers to an ever changing movement in printed media. As Ellis puts it, “...we had a vision of where things were going and we were ready to blaze the trail.” (Scotford, 80) And while the work that went into these historic publications would receive an abundance of awards over time, it would not be until much later when Pineles would be individually recognized for her hard work and success at a larger scale. It is safe to deduce that this injustice would be because of the misogynistic undertones of the working industries of the time which in retrospect made her life’s work, particularly at Seventeen and Charm, even more significant. We can now say that Pineles and her dedicated efforts to strengthen the female voice have paid off. The conversation of women in the workplace is no longer what was once a social taboo and young girls have been recognized as intellectual individuals and have more abundant access to resources that address them as such. Today, we see a surge in modern society of the female voice across a variety of print and new media, much louder than our predecessors would have ever dreamed of. What started out as seemingly humble beginnings for a Polish immigrant, grew into an important career that withstands history for both the creative industry and women’s advancement in society.
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Pineles in 1985
PINELES’ NUMEROUS FEATS AND CREATIVE DRIVE TO INTRODUCE NEW WAYS OF ADDRESSING AND DEPICTING WOMEN IN HER VISUAL DIRECTION HAS CHANGED DESIGN AND ITS INDUSTRY AS WE KNOW IT.
COLOPHON • Written and Designed by Natalie Estrada for Intro to Visual Communications II 2015 Winter Semester
TYPEFACES USED Kepler Std, in light and black extended subhead and display weights Univers LT Std in black extended and light weights
PAPER USED Dur-O-Tone Newsprint Extra White in 70# text weight Smart White in 65# cover weight Both from French Paper Co.
WORKS CITED “Cipe Pineles.” AIGA. American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1998. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. Ellis, Estelle, and Carol Burtin Fripp. Cipe Pineles: Two Remembrances. Rochester, NY: RIT, Cary Graphic Arts, 2005. Print. MacDonald, Vici. “Eye Magazine.” Eye Magazine. N.p., 2005. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. Scotford, Martha, and Cipe Pineles. Golden. Cipe Pineles: A Life of Design. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Print. Scotford, Martha. “Eye Magazine.” Editorial. Eye Magazine 1995: n. pag. Eye Magazine. 1995. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.
1960 1991 THE POST-PRINT PHASE