People: Garyfallia Pagonis
Senior Graphic Designer, Creative Services
Senior graphic designer Garyfallia Pagonis was born in Athens, Greece. She emigrated to New York in the 1960s, earned a design degree from Parsons The New School for Design in the early ’80s, and got her first job as a package designer for cosmetic products. In 1987, Pagonis moved to Boston, where she designed reams of brochures, magazines, and other materials in a series of jobs before BU snapped her up in 1993.
In fourteen years at Creative Services, Pagonis has garnered promotions and awards, thanks in part to her versatility, designing everything from websites and trade show booths to catalogs and newsletters. “That’s what I like about working here: the variety," she says. “Besides the fact that it’s a great bunch of people here; because the atmosphere is wonderful—I like that the work is always challenging and always different.”
Of course, she knows art and she knows fonts, but Pagonis’s secret weapon may be her skill as a photographer. She researches and art-directs all her major shoots, and she often takes her own pictures for The Comment magazine. “Whether it’s a still life or with people, I know what looks good and what doesn’t. Even if somebody says, ‘I don’t photograph well,’ I always say to them, ‘Trust me. I’ll make you look good!’ And I always do.”
In her spare time, Pagonis loves photographing nature and whale watching. She has also taught science courses to grade-school students at the Museum of Science.
