Spread for ID Magazine 

This is a  magazine spread designed and written by Katherine McCoy about typography. In this special edition for ID Magazine she challenges traditional layout patterns and places texts in unique blocks, as well as inverting letters in the title displayed across the middle of the page. As a designer she pushed the traditional methods and explored new technologies like desktop publishing and use of the Macintosh computer. She also made writing a cornerstone of her skills as a designer, emphasizing the importance of proficiency in both. 

McCoy became a co-chair of the design department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in  1971. She wanted to restore the programs status while also pushing it to discover new pathways of design. As a professor she pushed her students to write by implementing trip posters that recapped their student trips to other art departments around the country. These would showcase postmodernist influences and uses computers to design the layouts. In her position at Cranbrook, McCoy pushed her students to break away from the international style while still being educated in the roots of Swiss Modernist design. A lot of her designs started on a Modernist grid and took other influences through the design of the page. She elevated the program at Cranbook to teach new design styles and move the design world forward. She helped break postmodernism into art education and make it a more normalized form for design in the 1980s and beyond.