Laurie Szujewska

Laurie Szujewska (shoe yév skä) is an artist printmaker, typographer, and graphic designer. A love of words, type and all things typographic has been central to her work. Her prints are explorations in using letters and the Vandercook letterpress as an artmaking tool as opposed to a reproducing machine. The emphasis is on color, movement, and process with no intended outcome.

Writing in The Education of a Typographer (2004), a collection of essays edited by Steven Heller, Ms. Szujewska noted that: “Working with the press…provides me with a visceral experience of letterforms as shapes and sculpture moving in space.” Szujewska acquired her first printing press while living in New York City and working in the printing industry. She studied at the Center for Book Arts and began making artworks focused on working with type and relief printing as an artistic medium. She created graphics for the new music organization, Roulette, and was a member of the band, The Chairs.

Her passion for typography led her to advanced study in the masters program at Yale School of Art, where she studied with design masters Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson, Armin Hoffman, and Wolfgang Weingart. She then served as a designer, and later art director, for the type products division of Adobe Systems, where she was responsible for the design of numerous award-winning projects, including the Adobe Originals Type Specimen Book Series and the popular typeface Giddyup.

Ms. Szujewska started her own graphic design firm and established Ensatina Press as her letterpress studio. Her art and graphic work have been exhibited in shows in the San Francisco Bay area, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Dublin, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom; and is included in artist book and special collection libraries across the United States.