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NATALIE PANGARO + SHANNON BEER
PANGARO BEER
Natalie Pangaro and Shannon Beer founded Pangaro Beer, a Boston-based design firm delivering results-driven and aesthetically inspiring work. The firm believes that it is necessary to partner with client organizations on personal, marketing and business levels to create unique and strategic design that reflects clients' messages and brand. Therefore, its methodology injects clients into key junctures in the design process by walking executives through what is essentially an exercise in organizational learning. With each meeting, the firm's designers combine this discovery process with their design expertise to generate several creative iterations that are inspired by what clients have learned about themselves and their business. Through this conscious, explicit process, Pangaro Beer and the client arrive together at a final design that is visually superior and reflects the core personality of the business as well as its marketing and business objectives. The firm's print, web and advertising work has served a variety of business, education and non-profit institutions like Harvard Business School, Fidelity Investments, Mintz Levin, Harvard Medical School, Make-A-Wish Foundation and The Art Institute of Boston. The firm has garnered numerous awards since its inception and has been recognized by Adweek, The Economist, AIGA's BoNE Show, PIE Books and Rockport Publishing.
Was graphic design your first career path?
SB: I attended a liberal arts college and majored in French and studio art. I knew nothing about graphic design until my senior year, when a friend asked me to help on the school newspaper in the ad department. That led to an internship at an ad agency in Richmond VA. After graduation I took a position at a national electronics retailer as a paste-up artist and later as a junior designer, when I was introduced to the idea of graphic design as a career. I was inspired to pursue formal training, and I moved to Boston to go to art school, where the world of graphic design opened up for me. After working for a number of years in small boutique studios, Natalie and I founded Pangaro Beer.
NP: Parental pressure to pursue a science education, combined with my personal interest in art, led to a degree in textile science and a sales position in the garment district in NYC. While it was a great experience, I was not fulfilled creatively. Two career changes and six years later, I decided to enroll in art school. I spent the first year in the fine arts program before discovering the graphic design department, which ended up being a natural fit. Upon graduation I was hired into the design department at WGBH Educational Foundation. After a few years, I left to work on my own and then founded the studio with Shannon in 1999.
Should graphic design be an instrument for positive social change?
Absolutely. Graphic design is a vehicle to spread a message, and organizations trying to make a positive impact can really benefit from our services. At any given time we usually have at least one pro bono client on our job list. We are energized by the idea of furthering the causes of organizations like the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program. It is rewarding to donate high level-design services to institutions creating positive social change.
Which project in your portfolio are you most proud of?
We worked with the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair (HCNR) to develop a corporate funding brochure. That project illustrated the best parts about our process. Our design sense is tightly interconnected with our clients' business goals, so when the client revised its marketing strategy well into the project, the concept and design changes were seamless. We had to redefine the concept to reflect the internal messaging shift and even change photographers, as well. The project took a year and a half to complete, and GDUSA recognized the piece in the December 2005 issue.
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