Jacqueline Casey Essay – Liam Heeley

Casey was a well known graphics designer, who’s work mainly involved creating and designing posters for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1927. In 1949 Casey graduated in a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fashion design and illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art. Her passion for graphic design started at a young age as after she graduated, she had many jobs in advertising and interior design. Then, in 1972 Casey became a director at the Office of Publications at MIT, she was only one of the two women that were working professionally at the company. Casey was influenced by the International Typographic Style, which then allowed her to lead on and start making her own work unique. As her time as a director at the company she designed many posters for MIT events along with some other graphic designers. In 1988 Jacqueline said this about her work, "My job is to stop anyone I can with an arresting or puzzling image, and entice the viewer to read the message in small type and above all to attend the exhibition." She was achieving this by using small and bold text to contrast and also used visual typography to give the image and text a meaning. In 1989, Casey retired from her job being a director but still worked as a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Laboratory. She then very unfortunately died in 1991, due to losing a battle with Cancer, but this did not stop her work being shown in exhibitions all around the world and still to this day, for example in The Museum of Modern Art in New York City and also in the Library of Congress. One of Casey’s main aspects of her work is the way she contrasts large bold text with smaller text in the images, this was always very well used in her work, which therefore led to her becoming a very famous and influential graphics designer. She was known as ‘a woman in a mans world’, which represents how because she was a woman, society saw her as a very unique artist, which inspired her more and motivated her to continue to work in the graphics design industry.

Casey influenced MIT because not did she just work and become a director at the company, she also came from their college, so therefore MIT realized what effect they had on other people and their students, so they worked harder to promote their company and to increase the education of others. This also therefore motivated Casey to continue her work because it also made herself realize what effect she has and her work has on others.

I chose to use Casey’s work because of the way her work is very simple in a way, but very effective due to the contrasting colors and text. The red and black used in her work works very well because it creates a strong image with an inside meaning. Her work is also very inspiring because it looks simple; it allows people, like me, to want to have a go at trying to recreate her work,

whilst making it unique to them. Casey uses a sans serif font to create the bold, block font effect, which is very important in her work because it further represents how her work is simplified and it as simplistic as it can be. In the text she uses, she uses split colors, so half of the text will be one color and the other half will be a different color, I like this because it looks very simple, but also is a very good technique to use because of the way she uses contrasting colors. She uses black and red to split the text in color, which creates a very strong image as both colors are dark, depicting colors allowing you to focus on the text and see the hidden meaning in her work. I also like the way Casey uses letterforms and typography in replacement of image, which still gives the same effect as an image, which is a visual representation of the meaning of her work. In my work, I can also use images because Casey’s images that she used made no sense and had no meaning, unless you read the text, so therefore this further represents how her work was mainly the typography and not the image. The use of simple image is still effective though because it adds that extra bit of simplicity to her work, but works with the text to create the inside message that each piece of her work has.

During Casey’s time, there was very few female graphics designers, so her being as successful as she was, had a massive impact on the rest of society and culture because it influenced other upcoming female designers to work to the standard she was. So if it weren’t for Casey, there would not be as many female graphic designers as there is today. This is very significant and important because lots of well known and appreciated work today is designed or created by female designers, so therefore if Casey was recognized by the MIT, the industry wouldn’t have known any different from what they did before Casey become such an important and influential designer.

Casey’s work made the graphic design industry realize that you can make something very simple, but it can still have very deep meaning and a mentally strong, complex design. ‘Pair strong meanings with your designs’, this quote is used widely to represent Casey’s work because of the way her simplistic designs had great effects on other designers and on normal society.

I can be influenced by Casey’s work because the use of block lettering, colour and spacing can all be used in my own work but put to my own type of design. She sometimes uses large spacing in-between letters and sometimes uses very little spacing, so her typography varies in each piece of her work, so therefore I could make each piece of my own work unique in the tracking and kerning of the letters and words. She uses the colour scheme red, black and white, which all contrast very well together and make her work very strong, I can therefore use this colour scheme to try and give the same effect to my work as she does her work. I can also be influenced by Casey because I can use her technique by looking at the graphics and art industry and see what the industry is lacking of.

Casey did this by realising that there were very few Female graphic designers, so she worked hard to become well known and inspire other upcoming and practicing female designers. I can use this by realising that there are not many teenage graphic designers that have massively contributed to the industry, so therefore I could make my work completely unique and find ways of being noticed by companies and other well-known designers.

Graphics include image, logo, signs and symbols, which widely effect society as they have a massive impact on our decisions. Casey’s work didn’t directly affect politics, but would have changed the way politicians and society view women, in the working industry. They would have realised that women can also do the jobs that men do and have the same way of thinking as men, especially in the in the designing world, as well as in the rest of society.

Many other graphic designers said very influential and meaningful quotes about her work, for example C.W. Ceram once said ‘Genius is the ability to turn the complicated into the simple’, this was aimed at Casey because her work was very well thought of and had lots of meaning to them, but was also simplified as much as possible without hiding the meaning. The way other graphic designers were influenced and said all of these positive quotes about her work represents how in her time, there was very few famous female graphics designers, so therefore again shows the way that she had an effect on the graphics design industry by giving other females a chance and influencing them.

Overall I really like Casey’s work because of the bold colors that she uses in her designs, I think

The bold colours used in the word ‘RUSSIA’

The grey background creates a dark but effective mood for the piece of art and allows the other images and text to stand out more on the page.

To create this image of a planet, the colour black has been designed

This image looks very complex, which could represent how the topic of the art designed is a complicated topic to understand or is a complex piece of art.

The black bold background allows the rest of the

The small text and the subheadings are effective in the design because they are allowing the image to be the main viewpoint on the design as that is what makes the design so unique

they work really well together and create a strong piece of art. I think this is important because this also makes Casey’s work unique because she only uses the colors black, red and white which are not used on there own by many other designers. I also really like Casey’s work because of the images that are used to support the text, these images are not very meaningful, but add effect to the text. The single color background on her work is also very effective because it allows the image and main text to stand out.

Casey has had an overall very successful and inspiring career due to her art work being so effective. From my research into Casey’s work I am definitely going to try and use some of the techniques she has used in her graphic designs, like the colors and block text for example as I think they are very effective in posters and other graphically designed images. I think Casey has inspired lots of people during her lifetime due to her work and the way she has made society have a different view on women.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Caseyhttp://www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-age-of-information/the-international-typographic-style/802-jacqueline-s-casey

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