Paula Scher

Paula Scher (born 1948 in Washington, D.C.) has been a partner at Pentagram since 1991 and is among the most decorated graphic designers in history — author of the Public Theater’s typographic identity, Citibank’s umbrella logo, and identities for Microsoft Windows 8, Tiffany, and the High Line.

The Performance.gov firestorm

In late 2024, Pentagram’s redesign of Performance.gov — a federal site tracking government performance — disclosed that the team had used Midjourney to generate more than 1,500 icons in a bespoke style. Designer Bruno Bergallo first built the visual language by hand with paint and tape, then trained the AI to extend it. Social media erupted, with critics accusing the firm of taking work from illustrators and even of theft.

Scher refused to apologize. She told Fast Company the job was “a design project with a capital D” — a self-sustaining system, not an illustration commission — and argued that producing over a thousand government-approved icons in a three-month window with five designers would have been impossible any other way. She noted the team had published a case study showing exactly how the work was done: “it couldn’t have been more honest or open.”

She also admitted the backlash stung — “some of the comments were very nasty — they hurt my feelings” — while dismissing the theft accusations as “really stupid, and rather inane.” At 76, having lived through phototype, desktop publishing, and the web, Scher cast AI as simply the next tool a working designer is responsible for using well.