VISIONS: DJ Stout
Distinguished Speaker Series

 

In 2022 DJ Stout, a 1981 alumnus of the BFA in Graphic Design program, began conversations with Carla Tedeschi and Dirk Fowler, faculty in the Graphic Design program and the Development team of the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts about his interest in creating at endowed speakers series at Texas Tech University. His vision for the series was that it would present distinguished industry leaders in graphic design. By January 2023 DJ had made a significant gift to Texas Tech setting up an endowment to establish VISIONS: The DJ Stout Distinguished Speaker Series in the School of Art's Graphic Design area. Additionally, he made an additional gift to be used to fund the first speaker in the series.

Since 2000 DJ Stout has been a partner and principal of the Austin office of Pentagram. DJ grew up in the West Texas town of Alpine. DJ began his graphic design career in 1981 working for Robert A. Wilson Associates in Dallas. In 1987 he moved to Austin, where he was the award-winning art director of the nationally respected and critically acclaimed Texas Monthly magazine. During his tenure at Texas Monthly the publication was nominated for ten National Magazine Awards and was awarded the prestigious prize three times. In a special 1998 issue, American Photo magazine selected DJ as one of the “100 most important people in photography” primarily because of the impressive body of original photographic works that he commissioned and art directed during his thirteen years at Texas Monthly.

DJ's design work is represented in several permanent collections including Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), The Contemporary Austin, the Southwestern Writers Collection and the Southwestern and Mexican Photography Collection in the Witliff Collections at Texas State University, the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at the University of Texas, and others.

Paula Scher
Inaugural Distinguished Speaker

Internationally recognized designer and artist Paula Scher became the inaugural DJ Stout Distinguished Speaker at Texas Tech on March 7, 2023. Students, graphic designers from the region, and interested community members filled the International Cultural Center Auditorium for the hour-long presentation. Earlier in the day Scher and DJ had met with graphic design students in a class setting.

Paula Scher has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1991. Scher is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world. Described as the “master conjurer of the instantly familiar,” Scher straddles the line between pop culture and fine art in her work. Iconic, smart, and accessible, her images have entered into the American vernacular.

She began her career as an art director in the 1970s and early 80s, when her eclectic approach to typography became highly influential. In the mid-1990s her landmark identity for The Public Theater fused high and low into a wholly new symbology for cultural institutions, and her recent architectural collaborations have re-imagined the urban landscape as a dynamic environment of dimensional graphic design. Her graphic identities for Citibank and Tiffany & Co. have become case studies for the contemporary regeneration of American brands.

During the course of her career Scher has been the recipient of hundreds of industry honors and awards. In 1998 she was named to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame, and in 2000 she received the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. She has served on the national board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and was president of its New York Chapter from 1998 to 2000. In 2001 she was awarded the profession's highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in recognition of her distinguished achievements and contributions to the field, and in 2006 she was awarded the Type Directors Club Medal, the first woman to receive the prize. 

Her work has been exhibited all over the world and is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.