Ellen Lupton

Ellen Lupton (born 1963) is an American graphic designer, writer, curator, and educator. Known for her fascination and study within typography, Lupton is the curator of Contemporary desigD at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City and is the director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.

Lupton was born in 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1981, she started out as an art major at Cooper Union College. During the 1980s, design, in particular digital design, wasn't as popular as it is today. To Lupton, the visual art of writing was an inspiration to a self-professed art girl who came from a family of English teachers. When Lupton graduated from college, she was offered a position at the Cooper Union Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, which preserves design history. By accepting this position, she was able to take her love of typography, writing, and design and combine them all together. While working at the Herb Lubalin Study Center, Lupton was also able to put her creations on display for the public to see. These exhibitions provided another arena in which objects, images and text functioned as both the method of communication and the subject of inquiry

In 1997, Lupton was invited to become the digital design director of the Master of Fine Arts program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Lupton enjoyed being back in her hometown of Baltimore. Here, Lupton was able to become a do it yourself curator and build a reputation within the writing field. With this experience, Lupton was able to further her knowledge in exhibitions. Each exhibition that she has worked on has been accompanied by a sturdy and ambitious public interest.

Lupton also began writing many hands on books about the design world. In 1996, Lupton co-wrote a book with the Cooper- Hewitt Museum entitled Mixed Message: graphic design in contemporary culture. This book focused on the revolutionary changes that graphic design went through in the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It also spoke about how the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in particular was able to focus on the changes and accept them within the design world. Lupton also went on to write

• Design Writing Research: writing on graphic design,
• Skin: Surface, Substance and Design,
• D.I.Y.: Design it Yourself,
• Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students,

and many more books regarding design. Lupton has described typefaces as "the air we breathe, the water we drink and the pot we smoke."

Lupton primarily bases her designs on typography and implements type on a communicative level. Not only is lettering used to describe everyday things to us, or to help us communicate, but it is also there to be a creative tool for writers, artists, illustrators, and graphic designers. Regardless of the type of design some texts may have, text is everywhere. It is a medium and a message to the senders and receivers.

In order to create new typefaces and new designs in regards to type, it is important to date back to when type became an organized framework. Lupton bases much of her creation of type on The Bauhaus design techniques. In the 1920s, the Bauhaus was opened to explore to as a universal, perceptually based on language of vision. As Lupton states in her book Graphic Design: the new basics the Bauhaus and other schools analyzed form in terms of basic geometric elements. Many designers, including Lupton herself, followed much of what the Bauhaus taught. Some the designers also got involved in the postmodern rejection of universal communication and interaction. Postmodernism late became a dominant ideology in the 1980s and 1990s. Regardless of what the Bauhaus says about the technical side of signing typography, it is truly the designers tasks to produce a work that the general art world could appreciate and understand. Lupton has proven this time and time again with her works on helping the public to understand how simple the design world can be; her D.I.Y book.

After Lupton graduated from college in 1985, her drive for changing the commercial art world took a change for the best. Lupton graduated with a degree in typography and later sought to follow within the field of design. “Graphic design was a revelation to me,” says Lupton. “Design really wasn't in the mainstream back then. It was esoteric. It was the thing you did if you were very 'neat,' which I wasn't.”. With the booming interest in self-help books, Lupton co wrote the book titled D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself with graduate students from MICA. This book showed ordinary people, a new way of designing their own, unique works. From designing blog pages to creating your own book cover, Lupton breaks down the simplicity of the design world. "People don't just eat food anymore, they present it; they don't look at pictures, they take them; they don't buy T-shirts, they sell them.

In the D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself book, Lupton links design with capitalism and the Marxist Theory. In a Capitalist society, producers of goods are able to create their own unique materials and have them shared with the public for a profit. D.I.Y designers are able to rid the wave of capitalism while seeking out new counter-currents that carry their own imprint. D.I.Y is just like creating your own brand of T-shirts and selling them worldwide; your designing something based on your idea of art or fashion in this case.

Lupton is married to J. Abbott Miller, a partner in the New York office of the international design firm Pentagram. They live in Baltimore with their children and dogs Jack and Kevin, who are both chihuahua-jack-russell mixes.

Lupton also collaborates design work with her twin sister Julia Lupton. Although Julia Lupton graduated with a PhD in Renaissance Studies, they were able to write a few books together; Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things and D.I.Y kids. D.I.Y kids is a spin-off of Ellen Lupton's book D.I.Y: Design it Yourself. Although the different versions are directed towards different age groups, Ellen and Julia were able to create a do-it-yourself book for children to which the parents could become more involved with arts and crafts. From using recycled goods to creating your own cartoon characters, the Lupton sisters cover the hands on aspects of being a kid.

• The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, April 3 - October 28, 2018 (Curated with Andrea Lipps). Exploration of experimental works and practical solutions providing new ways to experience the world. Featured work from Christopher Brosius, KunstLAB Arnhem, Studio Roos Meerman, and Maya+Rouvelle.
• Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, February 12, 2016 - August 21, 2016. Presented seven kinds of beauty — extravagant, intricate, ethereal, transgressive, transformative, emergent, and elemental — through the international work of 63 designers and teams.
• How Posters Work, April 17, 2015 - January 18, 2016. Showcased the designer's perception in terms of principles of composition, perception, and storytelling, featuring over 125 posters from the Cooper Hewitt collection.
• Graphic Design: Now in Production, October 22, 2011 - January 22, 2012. Explored the broadening reach of graphic design over the past decade from a specialized profession to a widely deployed tool.
• Design for a Living World, May 2009 - January 2010 (Curated with J. Abbott Miller; exhibition designed with J. Abbott Miller, Brian Raby, Jeremy Hoffman, Kristen Spilman/Pentagram). Produced for The Nature Conservancy, this commissioned ten designers to create original product prototypes using materials from ten endangered landscapes. Designers included Yves Béhar, Maya Lin, Isaac Mizrahi, Ezri Tarazi, Kate Spade New York, and J. Abbott Miller.
• Swarm, December 2005 - March 2006. Contemporary art and design from The Fabric Workshop and Museum that reflect the logic of the swarm (simple structures yielding complexity).
• Skin Show, May - September 2002. Brought artificial life into modern furniture, fashion, architecture, and media. Focused on the many different shapes and forms of household furniture.
• Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture, Fall1996 - Winter 1997 (Graphics designed with Jennifer Roos, Frederick Gates, and Christine McKee). Critical survey of graphic design in the US from 1980 to 1995, with a focus on aesthetic, cultural, and technological changes.
• The Avant-Garde Letterhead, Spring 1996 (Curated with Elaine Lustig Cohen, designed with Christine McKee). Showcased original letterheads and ephemera by Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy, and Le Corbusier.
• Elaine L. Cohen, Modern Graphic Designer, February 7 - May 23, 1995 (Designed with Christine McKee). Focus on the groundbreaking designs of books, book covers, and signage from the 1950s through the 60's.
• Living with AIDS: Education through Design, December 1, 1993 - January 2, 1994. Survey of contemporary AIDS posters addressing diverse audiences.
• Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office, August 17, 1993 - January 2, 1994 (Curated with Sheri Sandler, designed with Boym Studio). Exploration of the design and production of objects central to the women's work throughout the twentieth century, including the washing machine, telephone, electric iron, and typewriter. Considered a visual history of the relationship between women and "feminine" appliances.

Books

• Lupton, Ellen (2020). Herbert Bayer: Inspiration and Process in Design. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 9781616899530.
• Lupton, Ellen (2019). The ABC's of Triangle, Circle, Square: The Bauhaus and Design Theory. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 9781616897987.
• Lupton, Ellen (2018). The Senses: Design Beyond Vision. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 9781616897109.
• Lupton, Ellen (2017). Design is Storytelling. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. ISBN 978-1942303190.
• Graphic Design: The New Basics, Revised and Second Edition (With Jennifer Cole Phillips), Princeton Architectural Press, 2015. (ISBN 978-1616893323)
• How Posters Work (With Caitlin Condell and Gail Davidson), Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2015. (ISBN 9780910503822)
• Beauty: Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (With Andrea Lipps), Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2015. (ISBN 9781942303114)
• Beautiful Users, Princeton Architectural Press, 2014. (ISBN 978-1616892913)
• Type On Screen, Princeton Architectural Press, 2014. (ISBN 978-1616891701)
• Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011. (ISBN 978-1568989792)
• Thinking with Type, 2nd revised and expanded edition: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students, Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. (ISBN 978-1568989693)
• Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things, St. Martin's Griffin, 2009. (ISBN 978-0312532734)
• Indie Publishing: How to Design and Produce Your Own Book, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. (ISBN 978-1-56898-760-6)
• Design Writing Research (With J. Abbott Miller), Phaidon Press, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008. (ISBN 978-0-7148-3851-9)
• D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself, Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. (ISBN 978-1-56898-552-7)
• Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005 (With Sarah D. Coffin, Darra Goldstein, and Barbara Bloemink), Assouline, 2005. (ISBN 9782843238451)
• Swarm: The Fabric Workshop and Museum (With J. Abbott Miller), Fabric Workshop and Museum, 2005. (ISBN 978-0972455626)
• Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students, Princeton Architectural Press, 2004. (ISBN 978-1-56898-448-3)
• Inside Design Now: The National Design Triennial (With Donald Albrecht, Mitchell Owens, and Susan Yelavich), Princeton Architectural Press, 2003. (ISBN 9781568983950)
• Skin: Surface, Substance, Design, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. (ISBN 978-1-56898-711-8)
• Graphic Design: The New Basics (With Jennifer Cole Phillips), Princeton Architectural Press, 2008 (ISBN 978-1-56898-770-5)
• D.I.Y. Kids (With Julia Lupton), Princeton Architectural Press, 2007. (ISBN 978-1-56898-707-1)
• Inside Design Now", Princeton Architectural Press, 2003. (ISBN 978-1-56898-395-0)
• Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office, Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. (ISBN 978-1878271976)
• The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste (A Process of Elimination) (With J. Abbott Miller), Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. (ISBN 978-1568980966)
• Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. (ISBN 978-1-56898-099-7)
• The ABC's of Bauhaus, the Bauhaus and Design Theory, Princeton Architectural Press, 1991. (ISBN 978-1-878271-42-6)

Books published by Lupton

• Lupton, Ellen (2008). Sexy Librarian. Slush Editions. ISBN 978-0615176772.

• 2019 – American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow.
• 2007 – AIGA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement, AIGA.
• 2000 – AIGA Fifty Books/Fifty Covers award, for "Design Culture Now" invitation design.
• 1999 – Recipient, Iris Award for History of Decorative Arts, Bard Graduate Center.
• 1999 – I.D. Magazine Distinction Award, packaging category, for Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age.
• 1998 – AIGA Fifty Books/Fifty Covers award, for "Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age: Selections from the Merrill C. Berman Collection".
• 1999 – First place, American Association of Museums publication design award, for Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age.
• 1997 – Norton Family Foundation’s Curator’s Grant, $50,000 grant for exhibition development.
• 1996 – Winner, 1996 New York Magazine Award. Awarded to 10 New Yorkers who are shaping the life of the city.
• 1993 – Recipient of the Chrysler Design Award, with J. Abbott Miller.
• 1992–1995 – AIGA, National Board of Directors.
• 1994 to the present – panelist, New York State Council on the Arts.
• 1995 – Juror, Architectural League’s Young Architects Competition.
• 1994 – Winner, Best of Show award, Aldus Magazine annual design competition, 1994 for design of book, "The IOO Show".
• 1993 – Chair, American Center for Design “100 Show”.