Deborah Sussman

Deborah Sussman was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 26, 1931.{{cite book |last=Walker |first=Alissa |title=The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-533579-8 |pages=620–621 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPGdBxzaWj0C&q=%22Deborah%20Sussman%22&pg=RA1-PA620|chapter=Sussman, Deborah|access-date=March 6, 2016}} Her father worked as a skilled commercial artist.

Sussman took classes at the Art Students League and attended summer school at Black Mountain College in 1952. She studied acting and painting at Bard College in New York. In 1951Black Mountain College application, Western Reg. Archives, NC State Archives. she attended the Institute of Design in Chicago that was established in 1939 by Bauhaus painter and photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), where she earned a degree in graphic design, .{{cite web|url=http://www.fastcodesign.com/3034682/fast-feed/rip-deborah-sussman-who-made-graphic-design-larger-than-life|title=R.I.P. Deborah Sussman, Who Made Graphic Design Larger Than Life|date=August 21, 2014}} She went on to earn a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bard College in 1998.{{cite book |last1=Gomez-Palacio |first1=Bryony |last2=Armin |first2=Vit |title=Women of Design |date=2008 |publisher=HOW Books |location=Cincinnati, Ohio |isbn=978-1-60061-085-1 }}{{rp|17}}

In 1953, Sussman began her career in the offices of Charles and Ray Eames, where she worked as an office designer. She worked for approximately 10 years with the Eameses, and during the course of that decade, she worked as art director for the office, designing print materials, museum exhibits, films, and showrooms for furniture. Sussman designed instructions for the card construction game House of Cards{{cite web |title=Artist Interviews: Deborah Sussman |url=http://www.lacma.org/video/deborah-sussman |publisher=Los Angeles County Museum of Art |access-date=December 14, 2013 |archive-date=December 15, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131215022254/http://www.lacma.org/video/deborah-sussman |url-status=dead }} and traveled to Mexico to document folk culture for the Eameses' 1957 film Day of the Dead.{{cite book |last=Aynsley |first=Jeremy |title=California Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way |year=2011 |publisher=Los Angeles County Museum of Art| location=Los Angeles |isbn=978-0-262-01607-0 |page=277 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ix-DjgMXh78C&q=%22Deborah%20Sussman%22&pg=PA277 |chapter=Developing a Language of Vision: Graphic Design in California |access-date=March 6, 2016}}{{cite book |last=Berger |first=Craig M. |title=The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places |year=2009 |publisher=Princeton Architectural Press|location=New York |isbn=978-1-56898-769-9|page=25 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XatRrLaZ-AcC&q=%22Deborah%20Sussman%22&pg=PA25 |chapter=The Wayfinding Designer |access-date=March 6, 2016}} She won a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her to study at the Ulm School of Design in Germany.

In 1968, Sussman started her own practice. Four years later, in 1972, she met and married architect and urban planner Paul Prejza. Sussman and Prejza formed the firm [http://www.sussmanprejza.com/ Sussman/Prejza & Co]. in 1980 in Santa Monica, CA before moving to Culver City, CA in1986.{{cite book |last1=Schell |first1=Amy |title=Inspirability: 40 Top Designers Speak Out About What Inspires |date=2005 |publisher=Pash |location=Cincinnati, OH |isbn=1-58180-555-1 |page=158 |edition=1st }} Their "urban branding" projects included city identities for Philadelphia and Santa Monica, as well as the look and architectural landscape of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.{{cite book |author1=LLC Pantone |author2=Leatrice Eiseman |author3=Keith Recker |title=Pantone: The Twentieth Century in Color |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3D0KW4Wa5hYC&pg=PT161 |date=November 1, 2011 |publisher=Chronicle Books |isbn=978-1-4521-1313-5 |page=160}}

In 1983, Sussman helped found the AIGA chapter of Los Angeles with Saul Bass and others.{{rp|19}}

In Stylepedia, authors Steven Heller and Louise Fili wrote that the graphical elements of that Olympics "epitomized a carnivalesque modernity" and placed the work in the Pacific branch of the New Wave design movement.{{cite book|last=Heller|first=Steven|title=Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits|year=2006|publisher=Chronicle Books|location=San Francisco|isbn=978-0-8118-3346-2|page=220|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GjlEeuNIuVMC&q=%22Deborah%20Sussman%22&pg=PA220|author2=Fili, Louise|chapter=New Wave|access-date=March 6, 2016}} The firm also designed Hasbro's New York facility, and has worked with the City of Santa Monica, the Museum of the African Diaspora, Disney World, and McCaw Hall. The company was later renamed Sussman-Prejza. {{citation needed|date=August 2014}}

Sussman was known for her bold and colorful work that includes an integration of typography in the environmental landscape. She was awarded an AIGA medal in 2004.{{cite web|title=Deborah Sussman|url=http://www.aiga.org/medalist-deborahsussman|publisher=AIGA|access-date=December 14, 2013}} In 2013 the [http://wuho.architecture.woodbury.edu/ WUHO Gallery] hosted the first retrospective of Deborah Sussman's early work, spanning her days at Eames Studio up to the 1984 Olympics.{{cite web |title=Deborah Sussman Loves LA |publisher=WUHO |url=http://wuho.architecture.woodbury.edu/?p=1512 |access-date=February 22, 2016}}

Sussman was named a Fellow at the Society for Experimental Graphic Design in 1991, and she was later recognized with [https://segd.org/tags/gold-arrow-award SEGD's Golden Arrow Award] in 2006.[https://segd.org/deborah-sussman-design-experience Society for Experimental Design: Deborah Sussman: Design Experience] In 1995, she became the first woman to exhibit in New York’s School of Visual Arts’ “Master Series”.[https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/incomplet-design/deborah-sussman-EvmTLVQoNlP/#google_vignette Listen Notes: Deborah Sussman]

Her archives is now at (1931-1968) is now owned by the Getty Research Institute.

Before Sussman became involved, the 1984 Olympic design consisted of a red, white, and blue "star-in-motion" logo that was considered inappropriate because of its nationalistic expression of the United States. Sussman and her designers, along with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, decided a new logo should express the culture of Los Angeles and Southern California{{nsmdns}}particularly Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, and India. By combining the traditional elements of the U.S. flag with new colors and forms, they achieved what architect Jon Jerde referred to as "Festive Federalism." In total, there were 150 designs creating the visual language for the 1984 games.{{rp|17}}{{cite book| last1=Poulin |first1=Richard |title=Graphic Design + Architecture, a 20th Century History |date=2012 |publisher=Rockport Publishers |location=Beverly, MA |isbn=978-1-59253-779-2 |pages=198–199}} This work won Time magazine's award for "Best of the Decade."{{cite book|last1=Poulin|first1=Richard|title=Graphic Design + Architecture: A 20th Century History|date=2012|publisher=Rockport Publishers|location=Beverly, Massachusetts|isbn=978-1-59253-779-2|page=17}}

• Identity and branding applications for the Gas Company of Southern California
• Wayfinding systems for Walt Disney Resorts
• Wayfinding systems for Philadelphia
• Seattle Opera
• McCaw Hall
• Exhibit design for the Museum of the African Diaspora
• City of Santa Monica {{Cite web|url=https://unframed.lacma.org/2014/09/17/deborah-sussmans-iconic-design|title = Deborah Sussman's Iconic Design | Unframed| date=September 17, 2014 }}
• Big Blue Bus
• Designed the identity of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1993{{rp|185}}
• Citadel, City of Commerce CA along with Nadel Parteners, Peridian Group, Martha Schwartz

Sussman died of breast cancer at the age of 83 on August 19, 2014.{{cite web|url=http://www.designboom.com/design/graphic-designer-deborah-sussman-has-died-aged-83-08-20-2014|title=Graphic designer Deborah Sussman has died aged 83|date=August 20, 2014|publisher=designboom.com|access-date=August 21, 2014}}{{cite web|last=Colker |first=David |url=http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-deborah-sussman-20140822-story.html |title=Deborah Sussman dies at 83; L.A. designer known for bold use of color |work=Los Angeles Times |date=August 22, 2014 |access-date=August 23, 2014}}

{{reflist}}

{{Portal|Architecture|Arts|Biography}}

• {{Official website}}
• [http://www.designboom.com/design/deborah-sussman-interview-12-11-2013 Sussman interview], December 11, 2013, designboom.com; accessed August 22, 2014.
• [http://www.aiga.org/medalist-deborahsussman/ AIGA Medalist]

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Category:American graphic designers

Category:1931 births

Category:2014 deaths

Category:California people in design

Category:American women graphic designers

Category:AIGA medalists

Category:Artists from Brooklyn

Category:Bard College alumni

Category:Black Mountain College alumni

Category:Deaths from breast cancer in California

Category:20th-century American artists

Category:20th-century American women artists

Category:21st-century American women

Category:Alumni of the Ulm School of Design