The Pleiades

An Historical Perspective on Woman in Tech Revolution and Digital Media Design

Abstract

The introduction of digital technologies in the field of graphic design in the 1980s gave rise to a system of skills, methods and professions that can be labelled with the words digital design. In this context, many women have played significant and strategic roles, contributing to the field with new theoretical and conceptual insights, multidisciplinary approaches and original design work. This paper presents an alternative historical account of the development of digital design, focusing on the work and figures of women – seven, like the stars in the Pleiades constellation – which each in their own way represent an archetype of the meeting between design culture and the digital world: Brenda Laurel, Laurie Anderson, Susan Kare, Amy Franceschini, Lynda Weinman, Molly E. Holzschlag and Sherry Turkle. The aim is both to trace a history of design from the perspective of the contribution that women have made and to map and illuminate a number of stories and issues relevant to understanding the relationship of graphic design with digital technologies, that risk remaining in the shadows, as women so often have.