Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

Seventeen

Cipe Pineles

The announcement for “An Evening with

One of the Best,” a lecture series in the late

1980 s sponsored by the Art Directors Club of

New York, promised to be an illuminating

conversation with six veteran advertising art

directors and graphic designers. The title of

the evening was not false advertising, but the

event was more than a little tainted. The

participants were all men. Once upon a time,

few would have raised an eyebrow at this, but

when these evenings were held in the late

1980 s, women had already become the

majority gender, if not in advertising, then

in graphic design. One woman who should

have definitely been invited to participate was

Cipe Pineles ( 1910 – 1995 ). As art director of

Glamour,Overseas Woman,Seventeen, and Charm, the Viennese-born

Pineles had as much, if not more, influence on publication design and

illustration in America as any member of the Art Directors Club.

In 1948 Pineles became the first female member of the New York

Art Directors Club (founded in 1921 ) and was eventually the first woman

inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame. That she broke the sex

barrier was indeed the reason for receiving a two-column obituary (with a

photograph) in the New York Times, an honor usually reserved for

individuals who have made lasting lifetime achievements. Although Pineles

would have vehemently denied that this was an accomplishment on which

to hang a legacy, it certainly was significant at a time when men—young

and old—jealously guarded the gates to the exclusive sanctum. Pineles was

proposed for membership in the late 1930 s but was repeatedly turned down

until, the story goes, her first husband, William Golden (she was also

married to Will Burtin) refused to join, saying that he wanted no part of a

men’s club. Pineles was admitted the next day.

As a Pratt graduate, Pineles started looking for work in the early

1930 s, landing a job with Contempora, a consortium of internationally

renowned designers, artists, and architects, where she designed modish

fabric designs and displays. In 1933 she was hired as an assistant to Dr. M.

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