Nancy Skolos is a Professor of graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design and Partner with her husband Thomas Wedell in Skolos/Wedell, an interdisciplinary design and photography studio located near Boston.
Husband and wife, the two work to diminish the boundaries between graphic design and photography creating collaged three-dimensional images influenced by cubism, technology and architecture. This collaboration, as well as the dialogue between the makers themselves and the pieces being made is a process of continuous curiosity and discovery.
Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell met in 1975 at Cranbrook Academy of Art where Tom was studying for his MFA in Photography and Design, and Nancy was pursuing an undergraduate degree in 2-, and 3-Dimensional Design. Nancy went on to Yale University to receive and MFA in Graphic Design. They formed their interdisciplinary Graphic Design and Photography Studio Skolos, Wedell + Raynor in 1979, with fellow Cranbrook alum and photographer, Ken Raynor who left the studio in 1990. The studio's work in the ‘80s and ‘90s included posters, corporate identities, books, exhibits, websites and videos with energy, vibrant color, and texture that reflected the spirit of the predominately high-technology clients who commissioned it during that time.
In the late 90s Skolos and Wedell expanded their interests to teaching graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design and producing more experimental, conceptual work concentrating on the poster as a form, using the large format poster to frame a 2-dimensional world where photography and text could be employed to render any kind of reality or fiction imaginable. Other current work encompasses interior design projects, commercial photography, identity, and multi-media. Clients include The US Department of Health and Human Services, Steelcase Furniture, The Lyceum Fellowship, The Cambridge Arts Council, and EMI Music Publishing, and poster commissions for campus events.
In 2006 Skolos and Wedell co-authored the book, Type, Image, Message published by Rockport. In it they developed taxonomy classifying the many ways that type and image function. These catagories included “separation,” “fusion,” “fragmentation,” and “inversion,” each meticulously examining the various ways in which type and image interact to express meaning.
Skolos and Wedell’s own collaboration as both typographers and photographers is reflected in this quote from the book: “As in any successful partnership, type and image work best when they complement each other-when they finish each other's sentences. For graphic designers, a photograph isn't finished with a click of the shutter. That is just the beginning of the creative process, as an image becomes a part of a piece of graphic design. In fact, the image must be “incomplete” so there is something left for the type to do.”
The studio has received numerous awards and has been widely exhibited. Awards include the Silver Prize, Lahti Poster Biennale; and the Bronze Prize, International Triennial of Posters, Toyama. They have been in many group exhibitions including: “30 Posters on the Environment and Development,” Rio de Janeiro; “The Modern Poster” The Museum of Modern Art, NY, and Festitval d'Affiches de Chaumont. Skolos-Wedell's posters are included in the graphic design collections of the museum of Modern Art, the Israel Museum, the Museum fur Gestaltung, Zurich, and many others. Skolos is an AIGA Boston Fellow, and an elected member of the Alliance Graphique International.
