The black symbols on this letterpress art poster represent the common workplace phrase, "This is a Business Office." They are printed in the language of shorthand, which was used in the Mid-Twentieth Century workplace by secretaries. After using these symbols to take dictation from "the boss," secretaries would then create typed business documents from their recorded shorthand notes.

This letterpress art poster strives to flip that tradition.

Instead of the secretary’s notes being hidden away in an office drawer, this poster foregrounds the overlooked and undervalued voices of secretaries, who found themselves in gendered positions, to show how they enabled the image of “the boss” in the background to maintain power in business. Created on a 120-year-old Challenge proof press, the shorthand symbols were hand-carved in wood and then juxtaposed with a woodcut design of a pointing hand in the background that was increased in scale through a polymer plate.

Paper

Marcy Leasum Orwig