A+: 100 years of graphic communication by women at Central Saint Martins showed graphic design and illustration by women who studied or taught at Central Saint Martins from 1910 to 2016 including:
Alessia Mazzarella / Alexandra Epps / Amelia Noble / Anne Howeson / Anne Magill / Astrid Stavro / Aude Van Ryn / Bianca Wendt / Cath Caldwell / Clare Skeats / Eleanor Crow / 'Herry' Perry / Helen Ingham / Morag Myerscough / Sunny Park / Rebecca Ross / Valeria Hedman / Nina Chakrabarti / Kat Garner / Scarlet Evans / Sroop Sunar / Rachel ‘Ray’ Marshall / Dora Batty / Freda Lingstrom / Margaret Calkin James / Kathleen Hale / Nicolete Gray / Peggy Fortnum / Enid Marx / Judith Kerr / Jo Brocklehurst / Margaret Calvert / Stefanie Posavec / Kate Hepburn / Su Huntley & Donna Muir / / Debbie Cook / Sheena Calvert / Sian Cook / Lucienne Roberts / Rebecca Wright / Catherine Dixon / Rose Epple / Rathna Ramanathan / Lizzie Finn / Catherine Anyango / Rebecca & Mike / Lydia Blagden / Jayne Alexander and Violetta Boxill / Rachita Saraogi, Marina Viktorsson & Rebecca Thompson / Sara de Bondt / Julia Woollams / Kath Tudball / Tina Tsang / Tanya Brennand-Roper / Syd Hausman / Carla Matoses / Lizzie Oxby / See Red Women's Workshop / Jenny Maizels / Sophie Thomas / Miho Aishima / Persiis Hajiyanni / Sinem Erkas / May Safwat / Ruth Sykes & Emily Wood
The objective of the exhibition was to celebrate the contribution of women to graphic design and to increase their visibility. Currently the graphic designers introduced to CSM students through the curriculum are overwhelmingly male. Yet graphic design students at CSM are mostly female – 70% of our students are women. This exhibition, and my continuing research into women in graphics in Britain, aims to help redress this gender imbalance in graphic design history.
The exhibition generated a lot of interest, and blog posts and interviews about it can be found at: Buzzfeed, Central Saint Martins, UAL, American Institute of Graphic Arts, It’s Nice That, Johnson Banks, Adrem Recruitment and Magculture.
Jeremy Till, Head of College at CSM, highlighted the exhibition as his favourite Windows Gallery exhibition of the academic year, praising its content and design. It attracted many visitors, including a group of students from Massachusetts College of Art and Design who received a talk from me during their visit.
As a legacy of the show, I asked designers if they would consider donating work to the CSM Museum and Study Collection for use in learning and teaching for years to come. Many designers were able to generously donate their work in this way, for which the CSM Museum and Graphic Communication Design programme are very grateful.