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Briar Levit

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Briar Levit
Close up portrait of Briar Levit standing in front of a podium
Levit speaking at TypeCon in Portland, Oregon in 2018
NationalityAmerican
Alma materSaint Martin's School of Art
OccupationProfessor of graphic design
Notable workBaseline Shift (book), Graphic Means (documentary film)

Briar Levit is an American design educator, art director and graphic designer. As of June 2025, she is a professor of graphic design at Portland State University.[1] Levit directed and produced Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production, a feature documentary about graphic design production methods before desktop publishing.[2][3][4] She is the editor of a book of essays Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History (2021)[5][6][7] and author of Briar Levit: On Design, Feminism, and Friendship (2024).[8]

Levit is a co-director and co-founder of The People’s Graphic Design Archive, a crowd-sourced digital collection of graphic design, with designers Louise Sandhaus[5][9][10] and Brockett Horne.

Levit grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.[5] She is a graduate of San Francisco State University[1] and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London.[3] Levit came to prominence in graphic design as art director of Bitch,[11][12] a quarterly feminist magazine published between 1996 and 2022.

Levit's 2017 film Graphic Means focuses on “cold type” graphic production, spanning techniques like photosetting, strike-on, and rubdown lettering like Letraset.[13][12] It includes interviews with Steven Heller, Ellen Lupton, April Greiman,[3] Ken Garland, Adrian Shaughnessy, Tobias Frere-Jones and Art Chantry.[14] It was shown at the ByDesign film festival in Seattle,[14][15] Dundee Design Festival, Design Manchester festival, and Birmingham Design Festival.[13][16] An independent film funded through a Kickstarter campaign,[17][18][19] it was made with an all-female production team.[13]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Briar Levit | Portland State University". www.pdx.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-24.
  2. ^ "Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production". www.dexigner.com. 2017-07-16. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  3. ^ a b c Singer, Patrick (2017-10-12). "Graphic Means: A History of Graphic Design Production opening November 14th at Parkland -". Smile Politely — Champaign-Urbana's Culture Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  4. ^ Sinclair, Mark (2016-03-07). "Watch the trailer for new film Graphic Means". Creative Review. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  5. ^ a b c Heller, Steven (2021-10-14). "The Daily Heller: Designing Women Get Their Due". PRINT Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  6. ^ "50 essential books every graphic designer should read". Creative Boom. 2022-01-20. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  7. ^ "Baseline Shift". Communication Arts. 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  8. ^ "Eye Magazine | Blog | Serendipity and self-discovery". Eye Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  9. ^ "Making the "infinite" crowd-sourced People's Graphic Design Archive". Design Week. 2022-10-06. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  10. ^ "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 2025-06-21.
  11. ^ "Designer, Educator, and Filmmaker Briar Levit on Uncovering Untold Stories From Design History". Eye on Design. 2021-02-03. Archived from the original on 2024-09-17. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  12. ^ a b "Eye Magazine | Feature | We Made This: Technical challenge". Eye Magazine. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  13. ^ a b c ""People are amazed by what designers could once do with their hands"". Design Week. 2016-03-16. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  14. ^ a b "Graphic Means, a documentary on the evolution of graphic design production, premieres this week". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  15. ^ James, Andrea (2017-04-20). "New documentary on the history of graphic design and technology". Boing Boing. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  16. ^ Sinclair, Mark (2017-10-18). "Graphic Means screenings in Manchester, Birmingham and London". Creative Review. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  17. ^ ""Graphic Means" Documentary Shows How Designers Did It Before Digital". Core77. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  18. ^ "New film explores the difficulties designers faced before computers". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
  19. ^ "This Is What Graphic Design Was Like Before Computers". Hypebeast. 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2025-06-21.
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