Sunday, March 29, 2015

Sheila de Bretteville

Sheila de Bretteville is a famous designer and educator at Yale University. Her own personal work mainly reflects her feminist principles and a variety of social issues she believes in. When Sheila came and spoke here she took us through a broad overview of her life in design in feminism.

She opens by showing us a poster of hers with the quote "a feminist looks at gender, pedagogy and practice"






A poster that she designed for the California Institute of the Arts where she founded the first design program for women in 1971

In the 90's she moved to the east where she continued her feminism design and inspired her to begin educating at Yale later on.

In 2000 her designs went from depicting mainly feminism to using opaque/clear designs to achieve a metaphor for learning/education as well as feminism.



She is now currently full-time one of the best design professors at Yale School of Art.




I personally do like her work, but what really draws me in about it is that all of her work has one central theme/message; feminism. I do not think I would be interested in her work had she not have a theme or niche clearly represented within her designs. I also respect that her theme is something she really cares about and believes in. It is a large part of why she is so greatly successful.