User:Hollychristie graphicdesign/sandbox

Gail Anderson on Marian Wright Edelman

This poster is designed by Gail Anderson for the Design Museum of Chicago’s Great Ideas of Humanity series. The poster reads “A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back — but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.” — Marian Wright Edelma n, as quoted in Richards, The Art of Winning Commitment: 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, And Spirits, 2004.

Subject of: Edelman, Marian Wright, American born 1939 – Design Museum of Chicago

Date: 2018

Medium: Ink on paper(fibre product)

Dimensions: H x W: 20 x 13 ½ in. (50.8 x 34.3cm)

Place printed: Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States, North and Central America

The typeface used by Anderson directly connected to Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin is Tré Seals’ interpretation of the wood type used for 1960s civil rights posters, including the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968, the site of King’s speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”.

This poster is also a collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Martin issued around 2017, with lowercase added in 2018. Named after Martin Luther King Jr. Inspired by the typeface used on poster that were carried during the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968. This was probably a wood typeface known as Plain Gothic No. 6243.

Great Ideas of Humanity

Great Ideas of Humanity is an ongoing series of the Design Museum of Chicago.

John Massey, former Container Corporation of America (CCA) head of design, encouraged the Design Museum of Chicago to reimagine the Great Ideas of Western Man campaign. They happily obliged. The reprise, Great Ideas of Humanity, embraces the increasing globalisation of our world and celebrates the resulting cross pollination of ideas, philosophies, societies, and cultures.

Like the original series, a committee meets, creates a list of “great ideas” from a variety of thinkers, and commissions an artist or designer to create a visual response. Also like the original series, the contemporary work does not advertise a product, but an ethos - of the museum, of the community, of Chicago in general - to make the world a better place via thoughtful design. The work is organised into sections inspired by Mortimer Adler’s syntopican, a two volume work that categorised and indexed all 431 original writings in the Great Books series. Many quotations do not fit perfectly, and others could fit into several categories.

Great Ideas of Humanity: Passing the Torch

This iteration of the project displays the work of Chicago Public School students and takes inspiration from two Chicago public artworks that feature women in the arts and Latinx thinkers. Great Ideas of Humanity 2020 connects and celebrates community, public art, and design to both elevate the voices of Chicago teens and grow the cannon of artists and thinkers to include those traditionally left out of the conversation, bringing their ideas to the fore.

Work style/inspiration

Pentagram partner and AIGA medalist, Paula Scher, influenced Anderson's lyrical and expressive typography style. Paula Scher helped Anderson get her first job at Vintage Books, put in a good word for her at The Boston Globe, and called Fred Woodward on her behalf when she wanted to work for him at Rolling Stone. She supported her when she moved to SpotCo seven years ago, and said matter of factly, "That's the perfect place for you," when she was just starting as a designer. She figured if Paula thought it was a good move, that was good enough for her. It was a turning point."