Interview Answers

Teal is also co-founder of the Women's Design + Research Unit (WD+RU), an organisation which seeks to raise awareness about women working in visual communication and related areas. This is the complete version of my interview with Teal, it's quite long, you don't realise how much people talk until you type it up! I am going to go through it and extract the main info that I need for the report, and I also want to contact some of the people that she mentions.

1. Please could you tell me more about the Women's Design + Research Unit (WD+RU)

There is kind of a potted history to what we have done and what we have been doing recently, the WDRU as we fondly refer to it, started in 1994/1995 and in a way it was prompted by a conference that was held here in London, called Fuse ’95. Which was the old experimental Fuse typography publication, that were all on CD, which now of course you can’t really use unless you’ve got the right kind of equipment, so the technology kind of superseded the whole idea. But at the time, it was a really interesting experimental form, for type designers to engage with, typefaces which didn’t necessarily have to have a real world application, so it was kind of a space for experimentation which could then be published and disseminated. So this conference, which was being run by Fontworks, was a way of laughing the publication and bringing together the designers, which had been involved, in the publication up to that point. I was sitting in the audience at this event, I was reviewing for journalism or something or other, I can’t remember exactly, but was quite interested in what was happening and just kind of noticed at the end of the day in terms of the question and answer session, that all of the speakers were white middle class males with glasses and so I had to raise my hand and just ask Neville Rody who I know quite well and I just said “ er Neville I’m just making an observation, but were are the women? And how did you go about the selection process for the publication” And he faltered a little bit and smiled, he knew exactly were I was coming from and Eric Speakerman jumped in and gave an explanation that the people that they knew. Well that told me everything, right there, it was the old boys network. And that’s not to demean at all, they’re all great typographers, i'm friends with most of them and respect them highly. So it had nothing to do with them as individuals, it was just that collective presents, so as a result of that a couple of us had been talking about these issues anyway and we were then contacted by John Roysoncroft, who was editor of the publication, for Fuse, and he said would you be interested in doing a typeface which talked about some of these issues. And we said yeah, of course and so we thought, if we are going to do a typeface we are going to need to have an organization under which the typeface can then be positioned. So that’s when WD+ RU was born as it were, and it kind of consolidated all of our ideas, and it was myself and Liz McQuiston, who teaches at Ravensbourne and we were both there at the time.

RI: Ravensbourne in Chislehurst? That’s were I did my Foundation course.

Yes, I used to run the graphics program there and that’s were Liz and I picked up on each other. And you might also be interested, on a side note, Andrew Slater, who is a graduate from Ravensbourne, is on the MA design for writing course here and he runs the alumni society so you might want to get in touch with him for that connection. A lot of good people came out of Ravensbourne that was a good period of time.

So anyway Liz and I got this together and we had also been talking to Sian Cook, who teaches down on DFA, so we all came together and thought, we have got to take this challenge up, we have make such a big deal about it in front of friends and also because we felt it was important. We had I think 3 weeks to design the typeface and that’s when Pussy Galore was born, And Pussy has got again a really potted history with us, she is a conceptual typeface, so you can’t really use it in commercial situations but what it does is to get people to actually think about the language of women and women’s language used against them, by typing in on the keyboard and various icons and words come up, depending on which key you push. So you have to really think about what’s happening with the type on the screen and your own kind of physicality to the keyboard. Interestingly enough, that is now on exhibition at the Pompidou Centre and their Elle at Pompidou centre on women artists and designers over the last 200 years, so we are taking a group of students in December, if you’re interested. So we tried killing her off a couple of times and we became so well known for that, its like any designer you get tagged with that and we have done many other things, but it has been, even looking at it when we have been to Paris to see what it looks like at the exhibition, it still resonated in terms of our political beliefs, which is not so much about being hardcore feminists and radical bra burning of the 1960’s but we do have an element of that, but it’s much more about a humanistic approach, and the WD+RU is really about giving women voices, who aren’t normally heard and its really nothing more than that, it’s a very simple idea and we have done that in a multitude of ways, not just through typeface design but through workshops with students, through conference presentations, through research projects and I’ll give you on of these, this it one we did a couple of years ago here which some of the staff and students, looking at what’s going on in and around the elephant and castle. So I think a whole range of activities and its also important to note that our day job is being full time educators, so this is something extra, it’s the added value to our lives and a good excuse to come together and design a poster in a day over a bottle of wine, so I think in amount of work we have done over the years its probably not as substantial visually, because a lot of our activities have been behind the scenes and intentionally so. We thought we were more affective as facilitators as opposed to the super star celebrities who stood up at the Fuse event. So that’s kind of the history and Sian and I, well Liz hasn’t had so much involvement over the years because of her job but in terms of what Sian I have been doing we have definitely stayed interested and now when Sian came to LCC it was great, because its easier just to walk downstairs and get together.

2. Within the Faculty of Design do you think there is enough being done to promote female graphic designers? Both past and present.

That’s a really good question, I think a number of things have happened since I’ve come back to LCC, because I was originally here many years ago and started the Ma program, and then went to Kingston then came back. And I have to say when I was here previously, it was very much still the old guard, you know a lot of the guys who used to stand at the end of the bar and do their tutorials down the Student Union. I think I was one of the few women teaching in the school at the time, and since I have come back I think there has been a real strong shift in a lot more women, suitable candidates, you know its not just about them being women, it really is about the right people for the job and it maybe that the applications that are coming in, there is a stronger representation, so therefore a stronger chance to be hired. I don’t know if any stats have been done on that but that’s just my guess in terms of what I’ve been involved with, so from that stand point I think there now is a strong female present and with designers who are doing some great things its bringing all of that together, its improving. The thing I’m still concerned about In this country and it does vary from country to country, that’s one thing as I’ve been travelling around, what happens here isn’t necessarily what happens to women in design in the states, or in Scandinavia or Asia. Britain I think still has that mentality that, well there is a belief in the equal but its manifestation is a little bit shaky and I think in jobs the glass ceiling is still there. So, I think it’s great that we are still based here, because in a way we still have a cause to fight. In the States there is much higher female presents in the design community and recognised as such, and it doesn’t seem to have the same issue, not to say that there isn’t a really strong feminism group there, which there is but there looking at a broader range of issues now, its not just about there own positions, but its about the larger community and more engagement and more kind of social issues, and feminist perspectives. And there is different reasons for that and just to say we went to Scandinavia a couple of years ago and gave a talk to their advertising group and we were really intrigued by that in that, the women who came to talk to us after our talk we wanted to know what there issues were in that particular country and that actually said, because it is a flat management structure, that if you step out to

raise and family or whatever that its harder to come back in, its not like here where there is a hierarchy and you can easier input back into a position, so exposure was happening by the very nature of the economic structure, which is different from here.

RI yeah I have read about certain countries viewing graphic design as a more female job whereas others see it as much more masculine.

Yeah certain countries it has come out of a craft tradition and the printing industry and that’s very much what is happening here. So I think there is still a lot of work to be done, which is why I think it is great that you are taking this on as a subject.

3. Do you think that women bring different attributes and/or attitudes to graphic design? If so, what?

Yes I do, also being very careful that it is about individuals and personalities and what have you. So I had to generalize I would have to say what women bring to the design profession is a capability of multi skilling and multi tasking, and I think that as a designer you have always got jobs on the go and always having to deal with the printers and clients and then studio and that sort of thing, and plus your life outside and the majority of women that I know who run their own studios seem to have a really good handle of what’s going on. I know there is a huge debate about whether or not visually you can tell the difference.

RI. Yeah I did wonder about that, but I wasn’t sure how I would even go about tackling that I think people are too individual to know straight away from their work if they are a man or a woman.

And I would hate to say it looks softer or its pink or its quieter on the page, it might be interesting Paula Sacher, has writing not on the subject but her work in particular which is large scale type and bold that you couldn’t say it was done by a woman. But I think it’s the processes and the skill bases that are being brought into a design studio, which does make the difference and again I think the number of women that I know do not actually seek for celebrity for example, that they are quite happy to truck along, so there is areal kind of pragmatism as well, and these are complete generalizations. So I think its more that then looking at a piece and saying that’s female, that’s male.

4. Do female Graphic Designers get the recognition they deserve? For example are they under-represented in industry events and media etc?

In this country yes, I had a really interesting conversation with the D&AD’s art directors on this very issue and their educational officer who is female was very concerned about this issue and I have to say I was a little disappointed that they weren’t taking more of a role in actively seeking out good women speakers who could talk about there work or other things. They seems a little complacent, that seems a little bit harsh, as an individual she seems very keen to get this moving but as an organization I think there is some complacency, so I think that’s a problem. ISTD that’s different because Frieda is very much active in that and has a high profile, so whether or not typography because its coming out of a craft tradition is seen a bit more ok, whereas the advertising industry, which there are very few at the top as it where, that they would get in for speakers. So yes I think there is still a real issue here. Its also coming out of education and I think the question that Sian and I have is as Wd+RU is “what happens to the women when they graduate?” because the percentage of female students to male is much higher, so there is that whole issue where do they go? Maybe it’s looking at the front end “ why are they coming to do the course? I don’t know, all reasons are valid but are they less motivated in the sense of being career orientated, is it that they are making very conscious decisions to get married and have a family, again all of this absolutely ok. But I can’t put a handle on it, there is such a huge percentage that just seem to disappear or whether they are just getting on with it in their studios.

RI or found a different career path

Again that multi skilling that they take what they have learnt, and apply it to somewhere else, go into publishing, apply it to project management or whatever. So I think that’s still an area that no one has cracked yet, in terms of finding out what those reasons are.

5. Following on from the pervious question, what are the barriers to women Graphic Designers affecting them gaining wider recognition and kudos?

That’s good one, is it barriers or choices? Barriers in some sense that perhaps in the way some studios operate, there is less opportunities, whether by design or not. That there is also that notion that many women may not want to put themselves forward for certain things and weather that’s a lack of confidence. I mean we do find that a lot of women have a lack of confidence in what they are doing, like they are brilliant designers but they don’t know how to sell themselves, because that’s not something as young women you are actually taught to do. Because I grew up in the south of the US and its about being demure and sitting on the front porch and saying “yes Sir” and all that kind of hospitality. So I would say is it barriers or is it choices, and it’s probably a combination or the two, that’s really difficult one.

RI and maybe women are less likely to ask for a pay rise, they just accept it

‘Yeah and the guys, and if I think of education there is a big debate about women professors and how many of us there are compared to our male counterparts, again not demeaning any of them, but the debate is there is still an enforces glass ceiling and that the guys are good at negotiating, so when they are made professor, they go in and say, “right you have made me and Prof, give me £30,000 more than what I have just got” and they say ok. But if the gals go in and say that, they say, lets just wait until next year. So there is a lot of evidence now growing in that area, were they have been doing work to determine the inequality and the mechanisms by which that inequality is occurring. So I would suggest that that is sharing some aspects with the design industry.

6. With more female graphic design graduates emerging in recent years do you think this will affect industry? And how?

I think it already has, I think in the last 5 years, just talking to students like yourself and recent graduates that there has been kind of a renaissance of interest in this area and I think as a result of that its like the next generation having the voice to push all these issues through and I think probably in a better position to getting something done

RI like in our course there is 28 of us on the course and there are only 4 guys and thinking of there is a whole load of women here, but something you don’t feel like you see the women out there. And that sparked the idea in my head, and I thought this could be interesting

And you have got role models within your own group, for me, when I was in university, the role models were few and far between, and they are still in education Shelia Debretville in Yale and Kathy McCoy, so it was that generation that I was looking up to and I think gradually over the years it has increased and there has been students of those women, who have had a keen interest in this area, so I think we are gradually building up a foundation of those voices, which I think is terrific. I don’t know if you have come across Sybil Hagman, she is a type designer and educator in Houston, I think she is originally from Switzerland and studied in kellarts and studies type design under Michael Worthington, I did an interview with her for a book, Font Source book, Black dot publishing, it came out within the last two years. Sybil has very specific views as to what she considers the female voice to be within the industry and she is someone who is engaged as a young type designer and the kind of opportunities that she has had or not had depending so she is probably a good resource.

7. Are there any designers, books or articles that you could recommend to assist my research?

There is a new book which has just come out on women designers, and you seen the article in Eye magazine that Ellen Lupton and Lori Mackerler, which was called something about the matriarchy and its talking to 3 women designers and they do talk about those issues, it may have been re printed in one of Steven Hellers Looking Closer series. Also Fiona Carsons book on Visual Culture and I wrote a piece in that about WD+RU, you know same kind of questions that you have been asking, that’s a collection of essays, so other people have been looking at crafts so there might be other things in there also well.

There is a book on women designs that came out 5 or 6 years ago, and the editor of that was Pat Karkham and she is a British design historian and she teaches in the States in New York, and I think it was part of an exhibition and it’s a massive book, and Ellen Lupton again has a piece in there. And Pat has a good introduction about design in general, because it doesn’t just affect graphics,

Yeah I think things like the web based and gaming industries there aren’t very many women.

Yeah in the gaming industry I think that’s changing. Did you see the piece that we done in Emigre magazine, that would be a really good one to look at, emergray site they list the contents, and we designed and wrote the spreads for that, we called it Maggie Thatcher’s handbag.

I have found a lot of stuff on web asking where are all these women designers

Yeah but no one is really interrogating it.

I think part of its visibility, that’s the problem I had with D&AD, and the women said, well tell me two women designers, and I thought well I’m not going t be doing your job, you need to do the research and get the women up there. I think it is the time, history comes full circle and this is a real opportunities to made these women visible, if they want to, sometimes people just want to be left to themselves, but to seek out the really good role models is always a good thing its affects the cannon in term of what we look

Women even from the start of the 20th century who designers some really iconic stuff.

Marion Cooper MIT labs in the early days she designed and set up the media labs and especially with men being in the computing, she did a lot of digital programming and she is terrific, so you have these spots, but again that’s America, when you start looking at this country they are there they are just a little bit more hidden.