Jennifer Morla

Last updated
Jennifer Morla
Born1955 (age 6970)
New York City, U.S.
Awards Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award [1] (2017)
AIGA Medal [2] (2010)
Website www.morladesign.com

Jennifer Morla (born 1955, New York City) is an American graphic designer and professor based in San Francisco. [3] She received AIGA Medal in 2010 and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award in Communication Design in 2017.

Contents

Early life and education

Morla attended the University of Hartford in Connecticut studying conceptual art [4] before receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design in 1978 from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts. [5] She is also mother of 2 girls. Morla married Nilas de Matran, an architect. [3]

She was influenced to undertake her career as an artist through visits to the MoMA growing up in Manhattan, seeing Charles and Ray Eames' IBM exhibit and films at the 1964 Worlds Fair, and her aunt's career as editor in the art department at Condé Nast. [6]

Career

Design work

After graduation in 1979, Morla was hired at PBS station KQED in San Francisco. Her job consisted of her designing on-air, print graphics and designing animated openings. [7]

In 1981, she was hired as the head of the art department of Levi Strauss & Co. Her job was to design the store environment, logos, packaging, and labels for the brand advertising. [8]

In 1984, she founded Morla Design. Clients include The New York Times , Levi Strauss & Co., Apple Computer, Herman Miller, Stanford University, and Luna Textiles. [9] [10] She has worked extensively with conceptual art venues designing identities, books and posters for The Mexican Museum, SculptureCenter, Capp Street Project, and New Langton Arts. [3] In 1995, she created a poster celebrating the 20th anniversary of the San Francisco Mexican Museum entitled El Museo Mexicano. The piece featured vibrant colors, print and pattern as a way to pay tribute to the Mexican culture. [11]

In 2000, Morla collaborated with Nordstrom creating a new face for the store's credit card to appeal to its consumers. The four holographic cards with vibrant colors and bold patterns reflected a reinvented version of the brand. [12] In 2019, Morla worked with the brand K&M Confections, creating three different styles of the packaging for their milk chocolate flavors featuring the same typeface and foil lettering texture. [13] Morla joined Design Within Reach in 2006 and developed campaigns emphasizing sustainability. [14]

Morla is regularly invited to judge design competitions, for instance the Webby Awards. She's been a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since 1998. [15] [16]

Her design work is featured in museums such as the SFMOMA [17] and referenced in books such as Meggs' History of Graphic Design, [18] Morla's work was the subject of a 2019 monograph titled Morla: Design, [8] published by the San Francisco-based Letterform Archive. [18] [19]

Teaching

Since 1992 she has taught as an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts. [20] [8]

Awards and recognition

Exhibitions and collections

Permanent collections

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Works in publications

References

Sources

  1. Cooper Hewitt Communication Design Award
  2. AIGA medalist Morla Archived 2011-05-14 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2015-04-14.
  3. 1 2 3 Bishop, Deborah (2018-11-15). "Legendary SF designer Jennifer Morla has something to tell you in big, bold graphics". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  4. "Success Ideas and Tips from Master Graphic Designer, Jennifer Morla". The Sherwood Group. 2010-10-06. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  5. "Jennifer Morla". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
  6. Petit, Zachary (2016-01-25). "Jennifer Morla: "Design is Not Solely a Device That Supports Consumerism"". Print Magazine. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  7. 1 2 3 Helf, Glen. "Jennifer Morla". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  8. 1 2 3 "This Just In: Jennifer Morla". letterformarchive.org. 5 July 2018. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  9. "Jennifer Morla". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  10. "Jennifer Morla". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved 2019-03-02.
  11. "A look back at Jennifer Morla: El Museo Mexicano, 1995". Design Observer. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  12. "Press Releases - Nordstrom". about.nordstrom.com. Archived from the original on 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  13. "K+M Chocolate Packaging". PaperSpecs. 2019-01-22. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  14. 1 2 "Design Within Reach". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  15. "Jennifer Morla, interviewed by Sean Adams: Continuum/Fellows Interview Series (2019)". AIGA San Francisco. 2020-02-24. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  16. "Jennifer Morla – Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) – 512 creative professionals from 46 countries". Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). Retrieved 2025-07-27.
  17. 1 2 Jennifer Morla at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
  18. 1 2 "This Just In: Jennifer Morla". letterformarchive.org. 5 July 2018. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  19. Fu, Florence (2018-08-29). "Jennifer Morla on Drawing Ideas from the Eames, Sol LeWitt, and More". Letterform Archive. Retrieved 2025-07-27.
  20. "- California College of the Arts - Portal". portal.cca.edu. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  21. "Jennifer Morla on The National Design Awards Gallery". ndagallery.cooperhewitt.org. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  22. Jennifer Morla at MoMa
  23. Jennifer Morla at Smithsonian American Art Museum
  24. Jennifer Morla at Library of Congress
  25. The Designer's Dictionary of Color [ permanent dead link ]
  26. Meggs, Philip B.; Purvis, Alston W. (2016-04-14). Meggs' History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   9781119136200.
  27. Jong, Cees de; Purvis, Alston; Lecoultre, Martiin (October 2010). The Posters: 1,000 Posters from Toulouse-Lautrec to Sagmeister. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN   978-0810995888.
  28. Stewart, Mary (11 April 2014). Launching the Imagination. McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN   9780073379302.
  29. Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World. Random House Canada. 13 October 2009.
  30. Women of Design: Influence and Inspiration from the Original Trailblazers to the New Groundbreakers.
  31. Heller, Steven (September 2003). Teaching Graphic Design: Course Offerings and Class Projects from the Leading Graduate and Undergraduate Programs . Allworth. ISBN   1581153058.
  32. "Press kit - Step inside design" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-04-26.
  33. Jennifer Morla in Graphis
  34. Graphis Poster 91. the International Annual of Poster Art. ISBN   978-3857093913.
  35. http://www.commarts.com/Search.aspx?code=morla&c=True&ft=False&dt=i%5B%5D Jennifer Morla in Communication Arts Magazine
  36. Breuer, Gerda; Meer, Julia (2012). Frauen und Grafik-Design. Jovis. ISBN   978-3868591538.