NO. NO. 07, 2013 07, 2013 JANE DAVIS DOGGETT Traveled through an airport lately? The graphic system standards you see November 2013 today are the innovations of an EGD pioneer who Jane Davis Doggett with her dog Liberty and her art, eg harnessed color, scale, and which borrows the simple shapes and bold colors of EXPERIENTIAL signage. At 84, she is still working, drawing from her the alphabet to humanize background with Joseph Albers to develop two- and three-dimensional graphic works, some of which massive public spaces. are in the permanent collection at Yale University. GRAPHICS MAGAZINE Doggett is also credited with the concept of thematic graphics to brand airports as gateways to their communities. At Miami International, her logo was based on the sea nautilus and used orange and plum—colors favored by the Latin Americans who make up a large portion of the area population. Her design vision for roadway Submission Guidelines signage was white sculptural arches inspired by the arches that typify Miami’s Spanish architecture (1982). Doggett was the first to codify airport terminals Deadline: Doggett was the first to codify airport terminals by letter, and she added color byand letter, and she addedshapes color and shapes to helpto travelers toward their airport destinations. On roadway signs leading to the airport, she recognized the need help travelers toward their airportto group airline destinations./terminal destinations for legible viewing distance from cars. Pictured is Houston On roadway signs leading to theIntercon tineairport,ntal Airport, which opened she in 1971. January 31, 2014 — eg magazine recognized the need to group airline/terminal G38299_BACK_44-64.indddestinations 46 for legible viewing distance from 11/12/13 6:32 PM cars. Pictured is Houston Intercontinental Late Deadline: Airport, which opened in 1971. February 14, 2014 For more information visit www.segd.org WWW.SEGD.ORG or call 202.638.5555. GRAPHIC EDITION ANDREAS UEBELE EGD PIONEER SKETCHBOOK NPR HEADQUARTERS Published by ADIDASAt Baltimore-Washington LACES InternationalJANE DAVIS Airport DOGGETT (1980), DoggettDAVID used airportHARVEY logos as Society of Experiential Graphic Design unifying graphic elements in the terminal. G38299_Covers.indd 1 11/12/13 6:19 PM Jane Davis Doggett with her dog Liberty and her art, which borrows the simple shapes and bold colors of signage. At 84, she is still working, drawing from her background with Josef Albers to develop two- and three-dimensional graphic works, some of which are in the permanent collection at Yale University. JANE DAVIS DOGGETT Traveled through an airport lately? The graphic system standards you see today are the innovations of an EGD pioneer who harnessed color, scale, and the alphabet to humanize massive public spaces. BY PAT MATSON KNAPP INTERVIEW BY TRACY TURNER rained at the Yale University School of travelers through airports, used standard fonts Art and Architecture in the mid-1950s to unify messaging, and introduced a family during its modernist heyday, Jane Davis of arrows and symbols to coordinate with her TDoggett was one of the first designers to envision “ABC” terminal identities. She has also been how architecture and graphic design should credited with the concept of thematic graphics work together to help people navigate unfamiliar that branded airports as the gateways to their spaces. As her colleagues in architecture communities. were designing massive public arenas, transit “I had the privilege of working with systems, airports, and cities to serve the booming Jane at her company, Architectural Graphics post-World War II economy, she recalls, “I got Associates, on projects for Newark Airport, interested in the human scale. How would a Jacksonville, and Tampa,” says Sue Gould, person coming to these behemoths find his way FSEGD, President of Lebowitz | Gould | and be secure in understanding the place?” Design (New York). “She was enormously Graduating from Yale in 1956 with an influential in her time, and deserves MFA, she launched a pioneering career in a recognition for her innovations that are now yet-unnamed field—environmental graphic intrinsic components of airport engineering design. In the next four decades, she created and architecture.” graphic identities and wayfinding systems for Tracy Turner (Tracy Turner Design, New a wide range of public spaces, most notably 40 York), another protégé of Doggett’s, met with international airport projects. Her contributions Doggett recently at her home in Maine. They to EGD include many concepts considered spoke about her days at Yale, her early career standard today: She initiated the use of color- and airport work, and the ideas that still inform coding and super-scaled letters to help guide the practice of EGD today. eg magazine — 47 G38299_BACK_44-64.indd 47 11/12/13 6:33 PM At Houston Intercontinental Airport (now George Bush International), Doggett expanded on the use of Alphabet A and used the “ABC” concept for terminal recognition and indexing airlines to the letter. Signage was integrated with the architecture. At Memphis International Airport, which opened in 1961, Doggett created a new airport aesthetic: signs built into the architecture, “not hanging like price tags and labels.” All messages, including airline titles, were standardized in one font and contained in fascia bands and in beams spanning corridors, à la the Greek classical frieze. Memphis was her first airport project, collaborating with Mann & Harrover Architects. Starting from her first airport project in Memphis, Doggett saw the logic of using a standard font as a unifying element. She created “Alphabet A,” adapting it from German Standard, a forerunner of Helvetica. 48 — eg magazine G38299_BACK_44-64.indd 48 11/12/13 6:33 PM “ Typically the architects would run out and take a picture of their building before anyone could get a sign on it. They viewed signs like measles. But the big mass public projects scared them—because it was going to be easy for people to get lost. So environmental graphics really emerged from the nature of the demands on large-scale architectural projects and the environments they created.” How did you get involved in assignments from Architectural provided by the major tenants, such environmental graphic design? Record. They sent me to Europe to as the airlines, rental cars, or the It actually came about at Yale. At the meet and photograph architects and coffee shop. There was no design school at that time, everyone was engineers. I met Alvar Aalto and Pier budget; graphic design as we now thinking large. It was prophetic. The Luigi Nervi and some outstanding know it didn’t exist. architects were conceiving projects young emerging architects, so that The first thing I did was to on a huge scale: sports arenas, mass was a terrific time for me. develop a standard font for use transit systems, airports, massive throughout the facility. This was urban renewal and design. Projects Your first big job in EGD was the the genesis of “Alphabet A.” It were new, complicated, and big. It Memphis Airport, right? was based on German Standard, oc curred to me to think about the Roy Harrover, an architect and a typeface similar to Akzidenz person coming to these behemoths friend of mine from Nashville and Grotesk. It became our foundation and what the human scale should be Yale, and his partner Bill Mann for systemizing a graphic program. and how this person would find his won the competition for the new I was able to convince the airlines way and make use of the place. Memphis Airport. Roy knew I was to relinquish their logos because exploring interfacing graphics with in those days some were good but And how did the architects react at architecture on a grand scale. He some were just awful. The alphabet Yale? Were they receptive? said, I think this is a chance for us to carried each name and was a way of They were extremely open. They do some good architecture with good cutting down the visual clutter. recognized the issues. At the same graphics here. We were under 30— time though, no one anticipated but we had that glorious audacity of So you concentrated on creating a the huge role graphic design would youth and plowed ahead. Yale had recognizable font as an organizing ultimately play. given us no barriers; we just did not principle. Did you look at many know we could not do things. fonts? How did you settle on one? How did you start your career? This commission, which we I knew serif fonts were problematic My first job was with George Nelson. won in 1959, was exciting for all of for long-distance viewing. I thought There, I worked on the permanent us. Roy and I went all over to look sans serif was better for distance; it’s exhibit at Williamsburg—the at different airports around the simpler, with basic strokes defining anthro pological part—and it is country. What we found for graphics each character and an expanded still up. Among the shards of 18th was a sorry state—actually a void. letterform was better for viewing century Chinaware, we would find There may have been a budget for from afar. Letter spacing is also vintage pieces of Coca Cola bottles “signs,” with a monetary allowance important. Generally I favored a which we also installed, as part of similar to the “hardware” budget, more open letter spacing since it the whimsy and human connection about $5,000 for the whole job. Signs was easier to read. I de veloped a and dating the layers. were considered to be in the domain laboratory of sorts for exploring Then I moved on and had of sign fabricators, to be produced these visual issues. the good fortune to receive under construction contracts or eg magazine — 49 G38299_BACK_44-64.indd 49 11/12/13 6:33 PM “ My red and blue color-coding concept designated the north side serving one group of airlines and the south side serving another.