A native of Ohio, Nancy began her college career in design at The University of Cincinnati in industrial design. After two years of study, she was accepted as one of a few undergraduate students at Cranbrook Academy of Art where she completed her BFA in interdisciplinary design, and then went directly to Yale and received an MFA in graphic design.

Within a year of graduation, she started a practice with her husband, Tom Wedell whom she met at Cranbrook. Their early projects developed a visual vocabulary with a complexity of structure and color that reflected the high-technology and consumer electronics clients they had in Boston such as Digital Equipment Corporation, and Boston Acoustics. Over the years they have worked at the boundaries of graphic design and photography, creating collaged, illusory images influenced by modern painting and architecture. In 1983 Nancy won an Award in Progressive Architecture’s Conceptual Furniture Competition and in the late 1980s Skolos-Wedell’s work was featured in the book, New American Design. Nancy began teaching at RISD in the late ‘80s. She was appointed to the full-time faculty in 1999. In 1998 she became an elected member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and in 2003 she was named an AIGA Fellow. Skolos has won many awards with her husband including Silver Prize in Toyama and Bronze Prize in Lahti Poster Biennials. 

Publications:

2007 AGI Graphic Design Since 1950 Taschen

2007 The Anatomy of Design–Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic, Rockport Publishers

2006 Type, Image, Message–Nancy Skolos and Thomas Wedell, Rockport Publishers

2006 Meggs History of Graphic Design Fourth Edition–Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis, Wiley

2003 Graphis Magazine 345 “Skolos-Wedell: In Tandem” – Elisabeth Resnick

2001 US Design 1975–2000, Denver Art Museum Prestel Verlag

2000 Novum “Showroom: Skolos/Wedell,” Germany

2000 Poster Collections of Contemporary American Famous Designers China

1998 Critique “Page Craft” – Marty Neumeier

1998 Typography When Who How – Friedrich Friedl, Nicolaus Ott and Gernard Stein Konemann

1993 Eye No. 8 Vol. 2 “Techno Cubists,” –Mike Hicks UK

1993 Graphis 284 “Skolos-Wedell: Bringing Guitars to Life” –Nancy Skolos

1992 Creation No. 15 “Skolos/Wedell,” –Stewart McBride Japan

1990 Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse, Rizzoli

1990 Communication Arts “Skolos, Wedell + Raynor” –Robert A. Parker

1989 New American Design–Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Rizzoli

1989 Graphic Design in America A Visual Language History, Walker Art Center Minneapolis