Louise Sandhaus

Louise Sandhaus
Sandhaus at Cooper Hewitt (2019)
Born1955 (age 69–70)
Alma materCalifornia Institute of the Arts
Known forGraphic design
Websitelsd-studio.net

Louise Sandhaus (born 1955) is an American graphic designer and design educator. She is a professor at the California Institute of the Arts and the principal of Louise Sandhaus Design. She was awarded the AIGA Medal in recognition of her contributions to American design as author and mentor.[1]

Early life and education

Louise Sandhouse was born in 1955 outside of Boston, Massachusetts to Norman, an art director, and Harriet Sandhaus, a newspaper columnist. The family later relocated to Orlando, Florida.[1]

Sandhaus received an associate degree in advertising design from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in 1976.[2] She earned her BFA and MFA in graphic design from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1993 and 1994. She received a Graduate Laureate from the Jan Van Eyck Academie in The Netherlands in 1996.[3]

Career

Sandhaus worked for MIT Press in Boston in the 1980s under Muriel Cooper, the first design director.[2][1] She started teaching at CalArts in 1996[1] and founded her design studio, Louise Sandhaus Design (LSD), in 1998. She was the co-director of the CalArts Graphic Design Program from 1998 to 2004 and was the program's sole director from 2004 to 2006.[3]

Since 1999, Sandhaus has collaborated with the architecture firm Durfee Regn as Durfee Regn Sandhaus. The collective has designed museum exhibitions and interdisciplinary projects.[4] Her work is included in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection[5] and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. She co-curated the Graphic Design section of the 2010 California Design Biennial Action/Reaction.[6]

Sandhaus received the AIGA Los Angeles Fellow Award in 2009[7] and served on the organization's national board from 2009 to 2011.[8] Throughout 2017–2018 she worked with AIGA on Making History, a national initiative to build and preserve graphic design history through crowdsourcing and using digital tools.[9][10]

Sandhaus's book on West Coast design history, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936-1986 was inspired by English architectural historian Reyner Banham.[11] The book received exceptional press coverage including reviews from The New York Times,[12] The Guardian (London),[13] The Los Angeles Review of Books,[14] and Eye magazine.[15] An exhibition including page spreads of the proposed book was held at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in 2008.[16] While working on Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires and Riots Sandhaus came up with an idea to start a crowdsourced digital archive of graphic design, which in 2021 grew into The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a website she co-founded with design educators Briar Levit and Brockett Horne.[17]

In 2022, she was awarded the AIGA Medal for her work as an educator and author.[1]

Selected publications

  • Sandhaus, Louise (October 19, 2012). "Merle Armitage: Daddy of a Sunbaked Modernism". Design Observer. Archived from the original on December 29, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2013.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "2022 AIGA Medalist: Louise Sandhaus | AIGA". www.aiga.org. Retrieved 2022-08-23.
  2. ^ a b Heller, Steven; Womack, David (2011). "Controlling and Manipulating Space". Becoming a Digital Designer. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 318–319. ISBN 978-1-118-03421-7.
  3. ^ a b Gomez-Palacio, Bryony; Vit, Armin (2008). "Louise Sandhaus". Women Of Design: Influence And Inspiration From The Original Trailblazers To The New Groundbreakers. HOW Books. pp. 112–113. ISBN 978-1-60061-085-1.
  4. ^ Baer, Kim (2010). "Envisioning the Wide Open West". Information Design Workbook. Rockport Publishers. pp. 208–210. ISBN 978-1-59253-627-6.
  5. ^ Teaching Graphic Design: Course Offerings and Class Projects from the Leading Graduate and Undergraduate Programs. New York: Allworth Press. 2003. ISBN 978-1-58115-966-0.
  6. ^ Hart, Hugh (July 25, 2010). "California Design Biennial: Action/Reaction". Los Angeles Times.
  7. ^ "Fellow Award". AIGA Los Angeles. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
  8. ^ "AIGA welcomes new members to its national board of directors". AIGA. July 1, 2011.
  9. ^ "Making History. | Willoughby Design". Retrieved 2025-07-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Sandhaus, Louise. "AIGA Making History". news.lsd-studio.net.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ "Louise Sandhaus". Vimeo. Retrieved December 29, 2013.
  12. ^ Lange, Alexandra (2014-12-24). "Graphic Design That Encapsulates the Golden State". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
  13. ^ Jones, Corinne (2015-01-10). "The best Californian graphic designs, 1936-1986 – in pictures". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
  14. ^ "A Dinner Party That Serves Only Desserts - Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
  15. ^ "Eye Magazine | Review | California is a state of mind". www.eyemagazine.com. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
  16. ^ Hart, Hugh (June 22, 2008). "Louise Sandhaus digs into California graphic design history at L.A.'s Municipal Art Gallery". Los Angeles Times.
  17. ^ "The People's Graphic Design Archive Is Rethinking How We Talk About Design History". Eye on Design. 2021-04-19. Archived from the original on 2024-07-20. Retrieved 2025-06-22.

Further reading

  • Gerda Breuer and Julia Meer: Women in Graphic Design, Jovis/Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86859-153-8, p. 541.