About the Archive
Portland Design History is a design & illustration archive for the Rose City.
Our mission is to supply a historical narrative for students and practitioners of design. We hope to unearth the foundation of today's creative industry, to discover and preserve a visual record of design produced, and to identify and characterize important contributors and themes. We want to reveal the forgotten stories of the designers, illustrators, and typographers of the Pacific Northwest.
Portland Design History was founded by Art Director & Educator Melissa Delzio (Our Portland Story, Meldel), in 2014. She seeks to reveal the stories of our early creative leaders and the brands, studios, publications and organizations that shaped our city. While the focus is on the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, in the process of sharing the biographies of designers with long careers, work from many other time periods are covered.
Engaging the design community and broader public through events has been a goal from the beginning. Review summaries, photos and recordings of past events here.
About Design in Portland
Portland, Oregon’s history of innovative design is rooted in the mid-late 20th century, when the city staked its claim in the creative industry. The creative landscape of Portland in this era can be organized into four distinct areas of impact:
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Hand lettering and the foundation of digital type design
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Design for the sports/outdoor industry
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Independent publishing which drove a vibrant counterculture movement
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Animation, particularly the craft of stop-motion
From the beginning it was a community that embraced the spirit of collaboration, no matter the creative discipline. Portland designers established Pendleton as the “wool standard”, wrote books that defined the profession, introduced the world to sports brand endorsements through Jantzen, and inspired the future of digital typography. Designers known and unknown offered visuals to oppose the Vietnam War, developed graphics to launch airlines, created illustrations to celebrate Sputnik and published underground newspapers to spread revolutionary ideas. On this website you can find deep dive stories into many of these topics and more.
Our Challenge
Much of the work created during this era did not survive. The work has been undervalued by art and educational institutions for decades, and often discarded by family members. As time passes, the design work from earlier eras becomes more endangered.
In our history, women and BIPOC designers were sparse or non-existent in traditional design studios. When women were employed at a design firm, they were often placed in assistant or admin roles (sometimes despite having talent and experience doing design during war years). There are some rare exceptions, and we have gone out of our way to dig in when we find them. In order to tell more diverse stories, we needed to break out of the mold of the traditional, commercial design studios and look to design work from community groups, independent newspapers, and other non-traditional sources. We have begun this work (see Collections and Publications), but are committed to doing more!
Let's Work Together
This is an ongoing project, and you can contribute! We seek help from the design community to expand the scope of the stories we tell. Please email: Melissa@PortlandDesignHistory.com if you have a lead or a suggestion for someone to interview or want to propose a story yourself.
PSU Collaboration
In January of 2020, Portland State University supported this initiative, hosting a research/writing class for Graphic Design students titled, Portland Design History, led by Melissa Delzio. The objective was to enlist the next generation of designers to tell the story of their predecessors.
PSU students conducted over a dozen interviews and wrote articles about designers who were prominent in a previous era. Biographies written by PSU students feature in a publication titled, Original, and on this website.
Original, the PSU publication is available for download here.
Full Interview List for Project
Roger | Bachman | interviewed by Tim Leigh |
Sarah | Bachman | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Anita | Bigelow | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Jim | Blashfield | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Lyn | Blessing | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
David | Celsi | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Maria | Corvallis | interviewed by Olivia Ridgley |
Mark | Christensen | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Lenny | Dee | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Barbara | Eden | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Joe | Erceg | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Matt | Erceg | interviewed by Melissa Delzio, Nicola Cheadle |
Carol | Ferris | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Jake | Kiehle | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Rupert | Kinnard | interviewed by Fahad Al-Meraikhi, Melissa Delzio |
Tim | Leigh | interviewed by Melissa Delzio, Nicole Donisi |
Tom | Lincoln | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
John | Lynch | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
David | Milholland | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Marilyn | Murdoch | interviewed by Melissa Delzio, Naomi Likayi |
Mark | Norrander | interviewed by Wolfgang Schildmeyer |
Jacob | Pander | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Meridel | Prideaux | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Eiko | Politz | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Robert | Reynolds | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Frank | Roehr | interviewed by Tim Leigh |
Patrick | Rosenkratz | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Joan | Sotomayor | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Melvin | Ulven | interviewed by Tim Leigh |
Loren | Weeks | interviewed by Ash Horn |
Denise | Wiley | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Ryan | Wiley | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Mary | Wells | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Sally | Wong | interviewed by Melissa Delzio |
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tim Leigh for laying the foundation.
Previous to 2014, a similar design history initiative was started by Tim Leigh. In 2008 he wrote, “We’d like to create a vehicle that follows the rise of design in Portland, to serve as a chronicle of fact and to notice the personalities that influenced its course along the way. Prime purpose of this entity would be to supply a historical narrative for students and practitioners of design—to show the steps taken to make the profession what it is here, to develop a visual record of design produced here, and to identify and characterize important contributors.” After Melissa interviewed Tim in 2017, their work was combined. It is because of Tim’s extensive work framing the project, interviewing key players and his collection of original documents that this project is as robust as it is. Thank you Tim Leigh!
Thank you to the following people for their ongoing support:
Sarah Bachman, Meridel Prideaux, Michael Buchino, Liza Schade, Mary Wells, Julie Lawrence, Mark Christensen, Matt Erceg, Michael Ellsworth, Briar Levit, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Liz Charman, Kristin Rogers Brown, Bobby Smith