Jacqueline Casey

The MIT Museum mounted an exhibition of Casey's graphic work in 1992, and again in 2012. In addition to the MIT holdings, the Rochester Institute of Technology has a collection of 99 posters, donated posthumously at the designer's request.

Casey, Jacqueline S. & Small, David. Fives. Visible Language Workshop, October 1990.

Casey retired from her role as director in 1989, but continued to work as a visiting scholar at the MIT Media Laboratory.

Casey's posters generally consisted of a striking image or bold typography, accompanied by informational details in smaller text. She often used typographic wordplay and visual puns in her work. Speaking of her designs in 1988, she said: "My job is to stop anyone I can with an arresting or puzzling image, and entice the viewer to read the message in small type and above all to attend the exhibition."

James Turrell: An Installation. Wallace Library. 1983.

Constructed Color: Sculpture by James Biederman, James Hoberman, Steve Keister, Lizbeth Marano, George Mayocole. Wallace Library. 1982.

Intimate Architecture: Contemporary Clothing Design. Wallace Library. 1982.

Ger Dekkers (New Dutch Landscape) Exhibition Poster. 1979.

Two Views/Peter Berg, Two Sculptures/Ed Rothfarb. 1979.

Cancer: Symposium on the Occasion of the Dedication of the Seeley G. Mudd Building. 1975.

Brassai, The Eye of Paris: An Exhibition of Photographs. 1974.

Fredrich St. Florian Projects. Wallace Library. 1973.

Art and Environment. Poster for MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, 1972.

A Spring Festival of Music 1972 in Honor of Klaus Liepmann. 1972.

Hans Haacke Exhibition Poster. Wallace Library. 1967.

Judge at Creativity on Paper exhibition. Sponsored by Art Direction magazine, 1966.

In 1955, she was recruited by fellow MassArt alumna Muriel Cooper to work at the Office of Publications at MIT. In 1972, Casey became Director, taking over this position as her colleague joined the MIT faculty. The two women were among the few working at this professional level at MIT of the time.

Jacqueline S. Casey (20 April 1927 – 18 May 1992) was a graphic designer best known for the posters she created for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While practicing a functional Modernism, Jacqueline S. Casey was a graphic designer in the Office of Publications (later retitled the Office of Design Services) from 1955 to 1989 and assigned the position as director in 1972. In discussing her design, Casey stated, "My work combines two cultures: The American interest in visual metaphor on the one hand, and the Swiss fascination with planning, fastidiousness, and control over technical execution on the other."

Casey was born in 1927 in Quincy, Massachusetts. She studied for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in fashion design and illustration at the Massachusetts College of Art (MassArt), graduating in 1949. After graduating, she had a number of jobs, including work in interior design and advertising, however she never obtained a job she was completely interested in; she stated, "I broke the negative cycle by traveling through Europe for three months" and came back "with the decision to focus my life on something related to the arts... to develop my visual sensitivity." In 1955, Casey designed summer session materials after acquiring a job at MIT’s Office of Publications. This was recommended to her by her friend, Muriel R. Cooper, who also attended MassArt. Casey stated, “In my early days at MIT, a designer working on summer materials would interview faculty and have a mini-course in a subject such as radioisotopes from the professor in charge. There was an opportunity to learn something new every day.”