Uncharted

“Want to meet Maisy?” asks Paula Scher, gesturing to her 3-month-old miniature American shepherd as we walk into her offices on Park Avenue South. The graphic designer is relaxed, dressed in black pants and a crisp button-up top with holes in the sleeves from her new puppy. As we move through Pentagram, we pass posters from the firm’s impressive portfolio, including two of Scher’s canonical posters for the Public Theater, a downtown New York institution she’s been working with for more than two decades. We settle into a quiet room, where Scher is at home surrounded by dog toys, prints of her own paintings, and various printed works.

‍

Throughout her career, Scher, 76, has established her design pedigree across various industries. She began by working on children’s books at Random House before moving on to the art departments of CBS Records and Atlantic Records, where she churned out covers such as Boston’s 1976 debut album and Still Life from the Rolling Stones in 1981. Since 1991, she’s been partner at Pentagram, where she’s created some of the most recognizable branding moments of our time—Tiffany & Co., Shake Shack, and the New York City Ballet are among those that owe their image to Scher.

Her secret to success, she says, is always coming back to a sense of play. “Very often, clients are happy that you didn’t do what they wanted you to do, because you did something so much more than their expectations,” she confides in me. (A lot of times, this goes hand in hand with spontaneity; Scher famously designed Citibank’s logo in the span of a few moments by sketching it out on a napkin.)

‍

Aside from her family’s newest addition, everyday New York surprises keep her and her husband, fellow graphic design legend Seymour Chwast, on their toes. There’s travel, too. Scher’s wanderlust has materialized in geography-driven works in the form of her “map” paintings, which she began in the ’90s. In 2008, a collection of these was published in Paula Scher: MAPS. “I began to invent my own complicated narrative about the way I see and feel about the world,” she writes in the book.

Scher’s “maps” are not only a reflection of how her mind works but also tap into her upbringing. Her father, a photogrammetric engineer, invented a template that ensured accurate mapping. Yes, cartography is in her blood, yet Scher breaks the rules in her own practice: Her renditions aren’t always accurate, and they can’t be used to navigate. Instead, she fills the spaces with type, adding her own perspective that collectively creates a larger message about the territory. Her most recent is a private commission that features all the best golf courses in America: “I painted a green United States, and in each state I drew all the statistics, the number of golf courses, and put them in circles, like little golf balls,” she explains.

‍

Finally, we end up in Pentagram’s storage room, where she keeps a file with a select number of screenprinted maps based on her paintings. She pulls out her 2018 Tokyo map, a fantastic depiction of the organized chaos between the transit system and the density of population shown through layers of text, subway lines, and colors. This philosophy of rule-breaking within parameters applies to her broader design process, too. “My best work is fairly irresponsible,” she explains. “It’s like I have a funny idea that nobody asked me to have, and then I execute it.”