The first quarter of the 21st century has marked a period of significant change in graphic design, with increased attention to gender, race, and nationality issues, particularly focusing on those who have been overlooked or forgotten over time. Elizabeth Resnick's new book "Women Graphic Designers: Balancing the Canon," published by Bloomsbury, aims to address the marginalization of countless women who have made substantial contributions to design and typography history.

Resnick, a longtime advocate for social causes viewed through historical perspectives, has previously curated major exhibitions exploring how design has been used to combat war and AIDS. Her latest work represents a natural progression toward addressing gender gaps in design history. The book features essays by educators, practitioners, and historians who have studied or personally knew 44 female designers from around the world.

The project's origins trace back to December 2014, when Paul Shaw invited Resnick to contribute to a proposed book on Modernist typographers. Shaw knew of her interest in Jacqueline Casey, a Massachusetts College of Art alumna, from her previous work published in Eye magazine. He asked her to research MIT's Office of Publications, which employed both Casey and her classmate Muriel Cooper.

Although Shaw's original book project didn't materialize, Resnick's research was published in Design Issues in 2018. During this intensive research period, she discovered Thérèse Moll, a young Swiss designer who worked temporarily at the Office of Publications in 1959 and introduced the staff to Swiss design principles. Having recently retired from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Resnick found herself with both the interest and time to explore stories of forgotten women in graphic design.

The book covers designers from various countries and cultures, with subjects ranging from Iran's Farideh Shahbazi to Japan's Uemura Shōen, Venezuela's Karmele Leizaola, and Turkey's Gulumser Aral Üretmen. Resnick admits that perhaps half of these women were unfamiliar to her when she began the project, making the research process particularly exciting and educational.

To find contributors and subjects, Resnick leveraged her international contacts from organizing sociopolitical poster exhibitions and connections with the Design History Society in the UK. She reached out to academic colleagues worldwide, asking them to identify underappreciated women graphic designers from their cultures and contribute essays about them. The process involved giving contributors one year to complete their essays, with some including interviews with living subjects.

The book's timeline focuses on women born in the 1950s and 1960s, many of whom are still working today, with the narrative extending into the 1970s when Postmodernism emerged. Resnick's goal was to create a globally representative volume that includes diverse perspectives, voices, and experiences from different cultural, social, and geographical backgrounds.

Unlike typical profiles of male graphic designers that focus primarily on professional achievements, Resnick instructed her contributors to write about "the whole woman," encompassing both professional and personal lives. She emphasizes the importance of understanding how women balanced their careers with family life, providing a more complete picture of their experiences and challenges.

The book aims to provide role models for students and young designers from underrepresented groups. As Resnick notes in her introduction, reading stories of women with similar backgrounds succeeding in design can motivate and inspire others to pursue careers in the field. She quotes astronaut Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space: "Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can't be what you can't see."

Looking ahead, Resnick indicates she could easily produce a second volume, as many stories from the 20th century across various countries and cultures couldn't be included in this first edition. The book represents an important step toward rebalancing the historical canon and ensuring that women's contributions to graphic design are properly recognized and remembered.