Jacqueline Casey

Jacqueline S. Casey (20 April 1927 – 18 May 1992)

MIT The professional quality and creative additions to design are what made the MIT's campus design group widely respected in the field. MIT is acknowledged as the first American college to employ graphic designers as part of the faculty, and Jacqueline Casey was one of the few who were hired. The prototype for the university's publisher (MIT Press) was implemented by the graphic designers, who became known for the meticulous and straightforward style of their typography. Campus projects, programs, cultural, and scientific events were advertised on campus, locally, and to the world at large through the group designer's works.

In 1955, Jacqueline Shepard was recruited by fellow MassArt alumna Muriel Cooper to work at the Office of Publications at MIT. She later stated, “In my early days at MIT, a designer working on summer materials would interview faculty and have a mini-course in a subject such as radioisotopes from the professor in charge. There was an opportunity to learn something new every day.”

In 1972, Casey became Director, taking over this position as her colleague joined the MIT faculty. The two women were among the few working at this professional level at MIT of the time.

Casey's posters generally consisted of a striking image or bold typography, accompanied by informational details in smaller text. She often used typographic wordplay and visual puns in her work. Speaking of her designs in 1988, she said: "My job is to stop anyone I can with an arresting or puzzling image, and entice the viewer to read the message in small type and above all to attend the exhibition."

Legacy Casey's work is held in the permanent collections of the MIT Museum, Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Her complete works for MIT are archived in the collection of the MIT Museum. In addition to the MIT holdings, the Rochester Institute of Technology has a collection of 99 posters, donated by the MIT Museum at the designer's request. Selected examples of these posters may be viewed online.

Works and exhibitions

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Give Blood. 1983. Arts on the Line. 1980. Ger Dekkers (New Dutch Landscape) Exhibition Poster. 1979. Art and Environment. Poster for MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, 1972. Poster for Octave of Prayer. 1972. Poster for MIT Gospel Choir: God Is... Academic Honesty: Are Our Standards Clear?. 1984. Lift Equilibrium: An Outdoor Experiment. 1969. Helène Aylon. Seven Montreal Painters.

Other

Casey, Jacqueline S. & Small, David. Fives. Visible Language Workshop, October 1990. Russia, USA Peace. 1985. Judge at Creativity on Paper exhibition. Sponsored by Art Direction magazine, 1966. William J. Gunn Award, Creative Club of Boston. 1988. Honorary doctorate of fine arts, Massachusetts College of Art. 1990. Appointed by the late President Bartlett A. Giamatti of Yale University to the Visiting Committee of the Yale School of Graphic Design. Member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

Further readingPosters: Jacqueline S. Casey, Thirty Years of Design at MIT''. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Museum, 1992.