Pentagram partner and graphic designer Paula Scher has created a major installation at Die Neue Sammlung in Munich, one of the leading design museums in the world.

Called Type Is Image, the work continues the museum’s tradition of inviting contemporary designers to create a site-specific piece. In response, Scher has created an immersive, walk-in exhibition inspired by five decades of her work.

At two-storeys high and 3,700sq ft, the show features commissioned works from Scher’s early years, including record covers from the 1970s, posters and branding work for the Public Theater, and corporate identities and graphic systems for NYC Parks, the New School, Atlantic Theater, plus many more.

A selection of Scher’s original preliminary drawings and drafts are also exhibited for the first time. Alongside these, posters fill the walls and hang from the ceilings, while a glass dumbwaiter display flips through images. Custom-built tables and display cases are also perched on various letterforms, all coming together to create a mesmerising celebration of typography.

The show also features the designer’s hand-painted maps of the world, including a new map of Munich which sprawls across the gallery floor. Plus in one corner, making its debut, is a car from Porsche that Scher has hand-painted with typography, which was a private commission the designer carried out during one of the Covid lockdowns.

Visitors can also take a slice of the show home in the form of a new large-format poster book created to accompany the exhibition. It contains 101 double-sided posters that can be removed and hung.

Type Is Image by Paula Scher is at Die Neue Sammlung until September 22, 2024; pentagram.com; dnstdm.de