Nancy Skolos

Nancy Skolos works with her partner/husband Thomas Wedell to diminish the boundaries between graphic design and photography—creating collaged three-dimensional images influenced by modern painting, technology and architecture. The studio’s work came into its own during the 1980s with clients in the Boston area including Kloss Video Corporation, Boston Acoustics and Digital Equipment Corporation, where the team’s surreal photographic concepts combined with rational typographic structures gave voice to such concepts as “software.” An Eye Magazine feature on the studio labeled their attitude “techno-cubist.”
Skolos is an AIGA Medalist and AIGA Fellow and an elected member of AGI. The studio has received numerous awards, including gold, silver and bronze prizes in the Warsaw, Lahti and Toyama Poster Biennials and Triennials, and has been widely published and exhibited. Skolos + Wedell posters are included in the graphic design collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the Library of Congress, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Israel Museum, the Museum für Gestaltung, the National Museum in Poznan and many others. They have authored two books: Type, Image, Message (Rockport, 2006) and Graphic Design Process (Laurence King, 2012).
Courses
Fall 2023 Courses
GRAPH 3210-01
DESIGN STUDIO 1
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In the first two semesters of a two-year studio track, students will come into contact with issues and questions that face the contemporary designer. Students will engage with and develop methods to take on these questions: search (formal and intellectual), research, analysis, ideation, and prototyping. Projects will increase in complexity over time, sequenced to evolve from guided inquiry to more open, self-generated methodologies. Some examples of the questions students might work with are: What is graphic? or How are tools shaped by contemporary culture, technology, and convention? or How is a spatial or dimensional experience plotted and communicated? These questions will be accompanied by a mix of precedents, theoretical contexts, readings and presentations, technical and/or formal exercises and working methods.
Please contact the department for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design
GRAPH 332G-01
GRADUATE TYPOGRAPHY STUDIO I
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Graduate Typography I through III (GRAPH-332G/342G/352G) are a sequence of courses that focus on the subject of typography. This sequence covers the fundamentals of typography, its theory, practice, technology and history. Studies range from introductory through advanced levels. Grad Typography I includes: the study of letterforms, type design, proportion, hierarchy, legibility, and structures for composition of multiple type elements. Aspects of contemporary practice and theory are integrated into research and discussion.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Graphic Design Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Graphic Design (3yr)
Spring 2024 Courses
GRAPH 2010-01
REFRAMING THE POSTER
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The poster has been an archetypal graphic design format since the late 19th century when lithographic printing technology came of age and captured the imagination of artists, bringing their vision into Paris streets. This course will invite you to explore future possibilities and contexts for the poster-as paper and as screen-building on its singular capacity to transform ideas into iconic picture planes; and examining the dynamics of typography and image, both still and in motion. Prompts will progress from individual posters, to sequences, to site-specific installations that explore the potential for interactive discourse in public space. Studio assignments will be supported with presentations and readings about poster history and contemporary poster design.
Open to Junior, Senior or Graduate Graphic Design Students.
Elective
GRAPH 3211-02
COLOR + SURFACE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design
GRAPH 3211-03
COLOR + SURFACE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Color is a phenomenon of light and pigment and is an expressive and symbolic component of art and design. Color exists in myriad forms: as ink on paper, as pixels on computers, paint on canvas, as light on screens, and reflected off surfaces of objects both natural and man-made. Through a series of exercises and assignments, students in this class will explore the power of color-seeing color in action as well as examining and creating color relationships and operations. Students will rotate through two faculty for six weeks each, and in doing so, explore how designers utilize color and how color gets applied to surfaces. Students will develop a general understanding of color theory and applied color through observation and articulation. These techniques and skills will serve as a complement to your other required core courses. A blend of lectures, demonstrations, studio exercises, assignments, and critiques, will allow students to observe, articulate, analyze, and practice the use of color.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Graphic Design Students.
Major Requirement | BFA Graphic Design