Artist / Creative (Individual)
Rajie Cook, an internationally known graphic designer, photographer and artist, lives in Dennis, MA and Washington Crossing, PA.
Cook is a graduate of the Pratt Institute and in 1997 was selected as Alumni of the year, and has also served on the Pratt Advisory Board. He has been a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
He has been the President of Cook and Shanosky Associates, Inc., a graphic design firm he founded in 1967 in New York City. The firm produced all forms of corporate communications; including: Corporate Identity, Advertising, Signage, Annual Reports and Brochures.
His graphic design and photography have been used by IBM, Container Corporation of America, Montgomery Ward, Squibb Corporation, Black & Decker, Volvo, Subaru, AT&T, New York Times, Bell Atlantic, BASF, Lenox, and a number of other major international corporations.
Cook and Shanosky received the Presidential Award for Design Excellence from President Reagan and Elizabeth Dole on January 30,1984 in the Indian Treaty Room of the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, DC. Juries under the auspices of the National Endowments chose the thirteen winners of the Federal Design Achievement Awards for the Arts.
In 2003, “Symbols Signs” a project designed by his firm for the US Department of Transportation was accepted by the Acquisitions Committee to the collections of Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
1959 to 1961, while at N.W. Ayer, Cook taught Design Foundation at the Philadelphia College of Art.
Cook has served as chairperson of the Communication Department Advisory Board at Mercer County Community College. He has lectured on design at Parsons. Pratt Institute, Suny Buffalo, Cape Cod Museum of Fine Art, Bucks County Community College, Mercer County Community College, University of Rochester, Moravian College, Montclair State University. The George School and Bloomfield High School.
In 1999, after 46 years as a graphic designer, he found time to explore this new medium, sculptural “assemblage”. The inspiration and opportunity to explore this mode of artistic expression comes at a time when my commercial career has sufficiently matured so that I can apply my skills, experiences, and a lifetime of artistic perspective to create “statements” with assemblages.
Most of my “raw” materials come from private collections, my own photography, flea markets, and antique shops, where I spend hours searching for items that inspire use in my boxes. My process, using these “found” materials, feels to me much like theater. As in the legitimate stage, I work within a three-dimensional form to portray the comedy or tragedy of life. I create these miniature, silent, “theaters” to express my feelings about a range of subjects. The three-dimensional objects I construct, using the found and fabricated objects (my “Thespians”), are a series of “performances” that share my deepest feelings with my audience.
Awards and Recognitions:
Presidential Award for Design Excellence, National Endowments for the Arts, 1985
Pratt Institute, Received L.W. Frolich Scholarship, 1952
Pratt Institute Alumni Award, 1997
New Jersey Art Directors Club
Philadelphia Art Directors Club
New York Art Directors Club
Type Directors Club of New York
STA, Chicago
American Institute of Graphic Arts
Mead Library of Ideas
Work Published In:
A History of Graphic Design, Meggs, P.B., 1983, pgs. 447, 448, Van Nostrand Reinhold
Graphis Magazine, Vignelli, M., 1981- 2, No. 214, Volume 37, pgs. 114- 125
Graphis Annual, Herdeg, W., 1982, pgs. 168/657
Graphis Ephemera 1, Pederson, M. B., 1995, Cover and pg. 37
Graphis Diagram 2, “Diagrams in the Electronic Age”, 1996, pgs. 8-15
Graphis Poster, Lechner, H., 1988, pg. 256, “Sequence”
Print, DeNeve, R., Jan./Feb., 1976, pgs. 52-59, “Like Minds, Strong Design”
Print, DeNeve, R., Jan./Feb., 1985, pgs. 90-95, “Singular and Plural”
Print Casebooks
Diagram Graphics
Corporate Graphics
Novum Grabruch Graphic, Sommese, L., 1978, Volume 49, pgs. 28-34
Communication Arts, Coyne, R., 1971, No.6 Volume 12, pgs. 68-77
Communication Arts, Coyne, R., 1979, No.2 Volume 21, pgs. 66-77
AIGA Graphic Design USA, 1983, pg. 333, 1984, pg. 396, 1985, pgs. 119, 163
Art Direction Magazine
Exhibitions:
Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, MA, “The Art of Boxing”, January – March 2003
The George School, Newtown, PA, “Retrospective”, February thru March 2002
Defiance, New York, NY, March 2003
The Whitney Museum, New York, NY, AIGA “COLOR”, 1974
The American Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY, “The Bakers Art”
The Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, NC, “Both Sides of Peace”, December 1996
Williamsburg Art & Cultural Center, Brooklyn, NY, “Williamsburg Bridges”, November 2002
A.R.C. Gallery, Chicago, IL, “Piece Process”, September 2002
Germantown Academy Arts Center, Fort Washington, PA, 2003
The Jerusalem Fund, Washington, DC, “Thinking From Inside the Box”, November 2003
Athica Institute For Contemporary Art, Athens GA, “Piece Process” January 16, 2004
Palestinian Heritage Foundation, Teaneck, NJ, “One Year Memorial”, Edward W. Said, September 2004
The Puffin Room Gallery, New York, NY, “Kingdom of Fear”, October 9, 2004
The New York Art Directors Club
The New Jersey Art Directors Club
The Philadelphia Art Directors Club
The American Institute of Graphic Arts
Juried Compititions In:
Dallas, TX Houston, TX
Wilmington, DE Louisville, KY
Palo Alto, CA New York, NY
Boston, MA
Philadelphia, PA
