About the Event

Briar Levit and Anne Galperin will tell the stories of Ellen Raskin and Betti Broadwater Haft, two New York-based contemporaries: one an illustrator turned book designer, turned author and the other, a multidisciplinary designer who was one of the rare women to design a typeface for Photo-lettering Inc. These are just two of the many histories featured in the forthcoming book of essays, Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History.

About the Speakers

Briar Levit is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Portland State University. She studied at San Francisco State University for her undergraduate degree in graphic design and at Central Saint Martins in London for her MA in Communication Design. Levit spent her early career in publishing as Art Director of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture magazine as well as an independent book designer. Her self-initiated publications are walking books that challenge the existing hiking guide genre. More recently, Levit’s feature-length documentary, Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production (2017) which follows design production from manual to digital methods, established an obsession with design history—particularly aspects not in the canon. She currently co-directs The People’s Graphic Design Archive with Louise Sandhaus and Brockett Horne and has edited a book of essays debuting October 26th, 2021 entitled Baseline Shift: Previously Untold Stories of Women Throughout Graphic Design History.

Anne Galperin is an Associate Professor of Art, and Graphic Design program director at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She earned a BSc in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University, and an MFA in 2D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Before entering academia, Galperin edited and wrote for the Macmillan Publishing Company, was a freelance writer and researcher, and designed books in-house at Chronicle Books. Her body of work includes book design for alt-press, museum, and art book clients, including Four Walls Eight Windows/OR Books, the Walker Art Center, and Distributed Art Publishers. Her essay about American Designer Betti Broadwater Haft is included in Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History, edited by Briar Levit and to be released in late October 2021

TDC Members get free access to this event! Contact director@tdc.org to receive a free access code.