Paula Scher’s “Great design is serious, not solemn” talk at TED

Paula Scher looks back at a life in design (she’s done album covers, books, the Citibank logo …) and pinpoints the moment when she started really having fun. Look for gorgeous designs and images from her legendary career.

The tag “rock star” is recklessly applied to everyone from bloggers to biochemists, but in Paula Scher’s case it couldn’t be more appropriate. As a rock star designer, she’s cooked up everything from Boston album covers to Elvis Costello posters, pausing somewhere in between to trash the ubiquitous visual authoritarianism of Helvetica. She’s also created some of design’s most iconic images, like the Citibank logo. She is a partner in the renowned design firm Pentagram, and in 2001 received the distinguished AIGA medal.

As a fine artist, Scher has also become increasingly well known for her microscopically detailed map paintings, densely latticed with hand-lettered text, that evoke not only place but the varied political, historical and cultural meanings (and preconceptions) brought to the world by the viewer.