Base Press is the letterpress studio of Frank Baseman, a graphic designer, letterpress printer, visual artist, and design educator. The work of Base Press has received recognition from national and international design exhibitions and publications, including a Judge’s Choice Award in the 2019 AIGA Philadelphia Design Awards for the Rebus Quotes and Other Typographic Explorations project. Base Press work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Huddle Gallery (Philadelphia, PA, Fall 2023); Gallery Land Collective (Philadelphia, PA, Spring 2023); Harrisburg Area Community College (Harrisburg, PA, Fall 2022); Marywood University (Scranton, PA, Spring 2019); University of Delaware (Newark, DE, Fall 2018); and Penn State University (University Park, PA, Fall 2017).
The work of Base Press is included in the permanent collections of the the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at Rochester Institute of Technology; the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum, Two Rivers, Wisconsin; Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography at the Cooper Union, New York; Poster House, New York; the Print and Picture Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia; and Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione, Cornuda, Italy. Frank Baseman has also completed Artist/Designer/Printer-in-Residencies at Tipoteca Italiana Fondazione (Summer 2023, TipoItalia23, Summer 2022); Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum (Summer 2020, Summer 2016); and Raven Press at the University of Delaware (Fall 2016).
As the Proprietor and Printer of Base Press, Frank Baseman is also the Creative Director and Principal of Baseman Design Associates, an award-winning, interdisciplinary Graphic Design firm providing strategic design thinking through visual communication solutions to a variety of businesses, corporations and institutions. In 2013 he was named as one of the “Most Influential Graphic Designers Working Today” by Graphic Design USA Magazine. And in 2008, he was awarded the AIGA Fellow Award from AIGA Philadelphia.
Prior to forming Baseman Design Associates, Frank Baseman was an Art Director at Philadelphia Magazine. He has also worked as a Senior Designer/Art Director with Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser, and the Bernhardt Fudyma Design Group in New York. A native of Philadelphia, he earned a B.A. in Graphic Design from Penn State University and an M.F.A. in Graphic Design from Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia.
Frank has served on the national board of directors of AIGA, the professional association for design (2003–2006), and as the founding chair of the steering committee for the AIGA Design Education Community (2001–2006). Frank Baseman was a co-curator of the traveling exhibition The Graphic Imperative: International Posters for Peace, Social Justice and The Environment, 1965–2005. He was co-chair of Revolution: Philadelphia, a national AIGA Design Education Conference (2005), and author and curator of The Tolerance Project, a student poster design competition and exhibition (2002). Frank has written articles for Voice: AIGA Journal of Design and The Education of a Graphic Designer (2nd ed., Allworth Press, 2005). He was named a “Person to Watch in 2006” by Graphic Design USA Magazine.
Frank Baseman is also a Professor in the Visual Communication Design program at Thomas Jefferson University (formerly Philadelphia University), where he has taught since 1998. He served as Program Director from 2009–2018. In 2018 he was named an Educator to Watch by Graphic Design USA Magazine, and in 2007 he won Philadelphia University’s Innovation in Teaching Award. Work produced by some of his students has won awards or been recognized by the Adobe Design Achievement Awards, AIGA, Graphis New Talent Design Annual, How Magazine Self-Promotion, Graphic Design USA Magazine, Novum, Society of Publication Designers, The One Show College Design Competition and the University and College Designers Association, among others.