Ruth Ansel, photo by Duane Michals, 1960s
During her up bringing on the East Coast she was witness to the migration of the avant garde art movement from Paris to New York. Spending summers with her families fancy friends in Manhattan and the Hamptons she found her self in close proximity with artists that would go on to inspire her throughout her career such as Jasper Johns, and William de Kooning. along with art she was heavily inspired by movies such as "The Red Shoe".
After graduating from university, she had a short marriage to Bob Gill, it was then that she was exposed to Graphic Design and was introduced to the famous New York design mafia which included names like Robert Brown john and Saul Bass.
In 1961, she decided that magazines where the closest thing she would get to working in the realm movies and began working at Harpers Bazaar. She had no experience in the field but it proved to be an advantage having not to unlearn all the design cliches of the time
She soon became co-art director with fellow AIGA Medalist Bea Feitler while they were both still in their 20’s
For nine years, the young duo directed the magazine to be representative of the times, mixing pop art with conceptual photography, film, and the sexual revolution of the '60s.
One thing that I really like about Ruth Ansel and her work is that she shows that collaboration as a skill is vital to a creative career. She had an amazing eye for talent and knew who to get together on a single project to make something beautiful and of the time. Much like how a designer may arrange and compose with elements. Ruth had a knack for arranging and composing talent.
Another thing that I really love about Ruth’s career is the drive she had to stay current and represent the culture of the time, and so when she left Harpers Bazaar she decided to switch from the world of images to the world of the word. In the wake of JFK and MLK assignations, she couldn’t see continuing to work in fashion appropriate for the current climate.
In 1974, she began work at the New York Yimes where she published things like Gilles Peress images from the streets of Iran and political silk screens of Andy Warhol.
In 1984, she joined Vanity Fair as art director just as Tina Brown was taking over as editor and revitalized the magazine, creating a living record of the Hollywood-obsessed, go-go 1980s, as seen through the lens of Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, and Annie Leibovitz.
Provoke: "Something new is off-putting," she says. "The first human instinct is to reject it. A talented design director or photographer has to keep looking for it." —Ruth had a specific idea of what it took to create a great magazine, a goal she always strived for. It contained four major ideas the first being Provoke “Something new is off-putting,” “The first human instinct is to reject it. A talented design director or photographer has to keep looking for it.”
Inform: A good and critical eye is more than picking fonts and grids. It's about being sensitive to social changes and then bringing those observations to your work. " It's a conscious act to change and evolve your thinking,"
Entertain: The third is to entertain“You’re always trying to create a magazine that’s as much about style and substance as it is about unexpected juxtapositions,” she says. “It’s up to the art director to encourage, surprise, shock, and have their finger on the pulse of the next thing.”
Inspire: Final goal is to inspire. Sometimes, you have to get out of the way and encourage “a general sense of direction to those talented people you have the opportunity to discover, nurture, and offer a place for them to show their best selves.
She formed her own design studio in the 1990s where she continued to work with all the great photographers she collaborated with in her magazines days. In 2008, she designed the cover for Annie Leibovitz book of photography, a new take on the simple all type cloth book cover we all recognize.
Next, she re-connected with Peter Beard another photographer she worked with in the '60s when she directed and designed his supersize Taschen Monograph.
She continued doing what she loved traveling designing and collaborating with amazing photographers all around the world.
In conclusion, the reason I am a fan of Ruth’s work and career can be summed up in one of her quotes “you have to be of your time in order to capture what it is thats going on and then give it a new view through the people you choose to work with”
Bibliography:
- Biography by James Gaddy February 10. “2016 AIGA Medalist Ruth Ansel.” AIGA | the Professional Association for Design, www.aiga.org/medalist-ruth-ansel-2016. - Callie Budrick. “Ruth Ansel: 2016 AIGA Medalist.” Print Magazine, 13 Feb. 2018, www.printmag.com/interviews/ruth-ansel-2016-aiga-medalist/.
- Samira Bouabana, Angela Tillman Sperandio, 2010. “Hall of Femmes | Ruth Ansel.” Hall of Femmes Ruth Ansel Category, halloffemmes.com/category/ruth-ansel/.
