Visual Language LLC

Writing and Design by Ellen M Shapiro

Design Organizations

When I’ve volunteered or have been invited to design posters for events benefiting organizations including AIGA, the professional association for design, they’re always treasured experiences — especially seeing them hanging in colleagues’ offices.

Poster for a New York chapter event, which I organized by bringing Ray Eames to NY, setting up the stage with Eames furniture and giant House of Cards reproductions, and putting together a panel of luminaries who’d closely worked with the Charles and Ray.
Poster for Icograda (now ICo/D), the International Council of Design.
Alphabet City poster auctioned at a fundraiser for AIGA/NY. I photographed each of the 26 artifacts between 23rd Street and Houston Street in Manhattan. Prints are available in various configurations and sizes.
I had the pleasure of speaking and judging at several CASE Design Institute (the Council for Advancement and Support of Education) conferences, including this one, for which I wrote and designed the invitation that unfolded into this poster.
With apologies to Manet, poster for an AIGA/MetroNorth event with a celebrity-designer-judged competition. “You loved it, but the client didn’t.” How common is that?
One of a series of posters for an art show to benefit the Garden Club of Irvington, which advocates for growing meadows of native plants instead of lawns.

Poster for The Mandela Poster Project, coordinated by volunteer South African designers led by ICo/D president Jacques Lange. From 700 submissions, 95 posters were selected. This is one of them: the life of Nelson Mandela, year by year. The posters were first exhibited at the University of Pretoria, then around the world, including at the Brooklyn Museum.