Deborah Larkin ’70 presents an exhibition drawn from her personal archive, featuring a collection of vintage shopping bags she used as teaching tools during her years on the faculty at Moore College of Art & Design. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, retail stores used shopping bags as signature pieces to promote their identity and communicate their message. Larger stores frequently updated their designs seasonally or to mark special events. Iconic examples, such as Michael Vollbracht’s illustration of a woman’s face for Bloomingdale’s, became showstoppers and fueled a competitive era of well-designed bags in the retail industry. Once—and still—a powerful vehicle for branding, these bags demonstrate how design shapes consumer identity, conveys values and transforms everyday objects into visual statements.
The exhibition also includes selections from Larkin’s professional practice, including greeting card designs as well as catalog and book projects created for corporate clients and cultural institutions. Together, these works highlight design as both a functional discipline and a creative practice, revealing how typography, image and material can extend meaning beyond the product itself. On view in the Alumni Gallery January 24 – March 14, 2026.
Join us for the opening reception on Friday, January 23 from 5 – 7 p.m., held in conjunction with the opening of the Faculty Triennial.
About the Artist
Deborah Larkin graduated from Moore College of Art & Design in 1970 and began her career working at design studios, an animation studio, and as an in-house art director at a bank before establishing her own freelance design practice in 1980. Her clients included banks, insurance companies and financial advisors, and throughout the 1980s she regularly designed multiple annual reports each year. She also worked extensively with nonprofit organizations and art institutions and designed books and exhibition catalogs for galleries.
Larkin maintained a long-standing commitment to teaching, instructing in the Evening Division at Philadelphia College of Art and later serving as an adjunct faculty member at Moore. Her teaching and professional practice were closely intertwined, with assignments that encouraged students to consider how design communicates identity beyond its immediate function. She later expanded her studio to include a full-time assistant, Donna Semola ‘85, a former Moore student, reflecting her dedication to mentorship and collaboration.
