Extending The Values of Modernism
The work of designers Richard Poulin and Douglas Morris is the latest addition to the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The designers recently donated their papers to the Cary Collection’s Graphic Design Archive. Now, students and researchers can study the Poulin and Morris design process underlying their graphic and interior design, wayfinding, and exhibition design for clients, such as ABC News, Columbia University, Goldman Sachs, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, National Public Radio, and the Smithsonian Institution.
The Richard Poulin and Douglas Morris Collection is the first primarily born-digital archive in the Graphic Design Archive, according to Steven Galbraith, curator of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection. “The digital archive that Poulin and Morris meticulously curated documents every step of their design career,” Galbraith said. “Each vital part of their creative process can be examined, from presentations to clients to sketches and photography to their final work.”
Their archive joins the company of several of their greatest influences, including Saul Bass, Will Burton, and Rudolph de Harak, with whom Poulin Worked. R. Roger Remington — founder of the GDA and RIT’s Vignelli Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Design — recently wrote that “the collective work of Poulin and Morris represents a special place of excellence among those contemporary practicing graphic designers who have magnificently extended the values of modernism.”
