Gail Anderson is an American graphic designer, writer, and educator known for her innovative approach to typography, hand lettering, and poster design. She was born in 1962 in the Bronx, New York, to Jamaican immigrants. She was the first of her family to be born in the United States and to receive a college degree. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 1984 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
After graduating, Anderson worked as a designer at Vintage Books (Random House) and The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. In 1987, she joined Rolling Stone magazine, where she held various positions for 15 years, including senior art director. Her work greatly influenced the magazine's typographic style in the 1990s.
In 2002, Anderson became creative director at SpotCo, specializing in advertising for theatrical productions, particularly Broadway. Since 2010, she has been a partner at Anderson Newton Design with Joe Newton.
Gail Anderson has received numerous awards, including the AIGA Medal for Achievement in Design in 2008 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in 2018, becoming the first woman of color to receive this honor.
Anderson currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and serves as Director of Design and Digital Media at Visual Arts Press. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and the Library of Congress.
