eg Magazine 03

NO. 03, 2012

eg

NO. 03, 2012

ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS MAGAZINE

eg ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS MAGAZINE WWW.SEGD.ORG

BY THE NUMBERS A TASMANIAN SCULPTURE TRAIL

SALT LAKE RISING

LEE SKOLNICK

OUT OF AFRICA IJUSI MAGAZINE

Society for Environmental Graphic Design The global community of people working at the intersection of communication design and the built environment

SEGD Board of Directors President Senior Vice President Vice President Treasurer

Our signs and custom laminate solutions can handle any brainstorm ...let creativity rain!

Amy Lukas, Infinite Scale, Salt Lake City Jill Ayers, Design360, New York Edwin Hofmann, Limited Brands, New York Gary Stemler, Archetype, Eagan, Minn.

Patrick Angelel, CREO Industrial Arts, Everett, Wash.

Sander Baumann, designworkplan, Amsterdam Steve Bayer, Daktronics, Brookings, S.D. Jennifer Bressler, Hunt Design, Pasadena, Calif.

Teresa Cox, APCO Graphics, Atlanta Peter Dixon, Prophet, New York Oscar Fernández (Ex Officio), University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Moira Gemmill (Ex Officio), V&A Museum, London Sue Gould, Lebowitz | Gould | Design, New York Lonny Israel, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, San Francisco Cybelle Jones, Gallagher & Associates, Silver Spring, Md. John Lutz, Selbert Perkins Design, Chicago Dan Moalli, Obscura Digital, Brooklyn, N.Y. Wayne McCutcheon (Past President), Entro Communications, Toronto Steven Stamper (Ex Officio), fd2s, Austin, Texas Tucker Trotter, Dimensional Innovations, Overland Park, Kan. Mark VanderKlipp, Corbin Design, Traverse City, Mich.

Julie Vogel, Kate Keating Associates, San Francisco Leslie Wolke, Leslie Wolke Consulting, Austin, Texas Alexandra Wood, Holmes Wood, London Joe Zenas, Thinkwell, Burbank, Calif.

SEGD CHAPTER CHAIRS Atlanta Lynne Bernhardt, lynne@sbs-architecture.com

Stephen Carlin, stevecarlin@coopercarry.com Boston Michele Phelan, michele@96pt.com

Amy Files, afiles@spdeast.com Brisbane, Australia Jack Bryce, jack@jackbryce.com Charlotte, NC Kevin Kern, kkern@designcollective.com Scott Muller, smuller@poblocki.com Chicago Maggie Allen, maggie.allen.ri08@statefarm.com

Adam Cook, adam.cook@am.jll.com Cincinnati Jeff Waggoner, jeffwaggoner@fuse.net Cleveland Cathy Fromet, cathy@studiographique.com Dallas Heather Chandler, heather@babendure.com Denver George Lim, tangramdesign-george@comcast.net

Jon Mischke, jon@jmischkecreative.com Edinburgh Lucy Richards, lr@studiolr.com Houston Duane Farthing, dfarthing@fmgdesign.com

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Kansas City Rick Smith, rsmith@dimin.com Minneapolis Adam Halverson, adamh@serigraphicssign.com Montreal Michael Clarizio, mclarizio@signaturedesign.ca New York Gary Anzalone, gma@precisionsigns.com Norman, Oklahoma Justin Molloy, justin.molloy@signitecture.com Philadelphia John Bosio, jbosio@merjedesign.com

Barbara Schwarzenbach, bws@cloudgehshan.com San Francisco

Lauren Kelly, lauren@laurenkelly.com

Seattle Cynthia Hall, chall@studio-sc.com

888-464-9663 info@izoneimaging.com

izoneimaging.com

2 — eg magazine

Toronto Andrew Kuzyk, andrew@entro.com Vancouver Danielle Lindsay-Chung, danielle.lindsaychung@gmail.com

Daniela Pilossof, daniela.pilossof@gmail.com

Publisher Clive Roux, CEO Editor-in-Chief Pat Matson Knapp pat@segd.org Executive Editor Ann Makowski Founding Editor Leslie Gallery Dilworth Design Wayne-William Creative Contributors Sue Gould, Jenny Reising, Lee H. Skolnick, Garth Walker Executive and Editorial Offices 1000 Vermont Ave., NW Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20005 202.638.5555 www.segd.org

Subscriptions: US $250/year, International $300/year. Send US funds to eg magazine, 1000 Vermont Ave. NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005.

To charge your order, call 202.638.5555.

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ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS MAGAZINE

WWW.SEGD.ORG

eg magazine is the international journal of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design. Opinions expressed editorially and by contributors are not necessarily those of SEGD. Advertisements appearing in eg magazine do not constitute or imply endorsement by SEGD or eg magazine.

Material in this magazine is copyrighted.

Photocopying for academic purposes is permissible, with appropriate credit. eg magazine is published four times a year

by SEGD Services Corp. Periodical postage paid at York, Penn., USA, and additional mailing offices.

eg

NO. 03, 2012

eg ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS MAGAZINE

Editorial, Subscriptions, Reprints, Back Issues 202.638.5555 segd@segd.org

It is hard to beat the energy and enthusiasm of youth, but there is also something about maturing that is immensely satisfying. SEGD is experiencing that right now. SEGD turns 40 in 2013 and it will do so with a solid record of supporting the environmental graphic design field.

Forty, thank goodness, is not what it used to be. I remember my parents reaching 40 and thinking that was “old.” Today, with longer life expectancies that milestone is more like a mid point. Perhaps 40 is better seen as the new 30, with as much to look forward to as there is to look back on! At least this is how it feels at SEGD right now.

The world has been going through major technology shifts in the past 20 years since the introduction of the Internet and networking technology. These shifts have radically changed communication and products—and they are poised to exert a much bigger influence on the built environment in the next 40 years as we see the dawn and implementation of intelligent environments. There is no question in my mind that the next 40 years will be exciting, disruptive, and life-changing, not only for our members, but also for the users of the incredible designs they will bring into the world.

But as you will see in the pages of this issue, not all the world is digital, and technology is not a requirement for creating beauty, quality, and cultural expression. Those are achievable from the lowest-tech expression of environmental graphics all the way up to the most sophisticated digital expression of the art form. We hope you’ll enjoy the work we’ve showcased here.

As we close out our first 40 years as an organization (and a design field), we have many milestones to look back on, as well as a brand new one. In November, eg magazine won FOLIO’s Gold Ozzie Award in the “Best Redesign” category.

Among more than 2,000 entries, eg—redesigned by Holmes Wood (London)—was chosen as the top winner for redesign in the category of Associations/Non-Profits.

FOLIO’s is the largest and most prestigious awards program for magazine publishers, and we’re proud to be in the company of such award-winning publications as Harper’s Bazaar, Saveur, Architect, and Architectural Record.

We extend our thanks to the talented team at Holmes Wood. Thank you for reimagining segdDESIGN so beautifully.

And our heartfelt thanks, as well, to the SEGD community for embracing eg magazine and inspiring its “examples given.”

So as we close out our first 40 years with style, we’ll start the next 40 looking forward—with our sights set firmly on navigating the digital future.

NO. 03, 2012

Advertising Sales Sara Naegelin 512.524.2596 sara@segd.org

The New Forty

BY THE NUMBERS A TASMANIAN SCULPTURE TRAIL

SALT LAKE RISING

LEE SKOLNICK

OUT OF AFRICA IJUSI MAGAZINE

5/8/12 6:23 PM 5/8/12 5/8/12 6:23 6:23 PM PM

5/8/12 6:23 PM

12/11/12 12:55 PM

On the cover: In Hobart, Tasmania, Futago’s sculpture trail through an historic harborfront neighborhood takes to the sea.

Photo: Jonathan Wherrett See story, page 38

Clive Roux CEO

eg magazine — 3

CONTENTS

1 UP FRONT ( 10 )

Found

Urbanflow, Movement Café, and the American Sign Museum ( 14 )

Review

Joel Katz’s Designing Information ( 16 )

Out There

Concrete Graphics, Trace for iPad, and Visual Magnetics

4 — eg magazine

2 FEATURES

3 INSPIRATION

( 20 )

( 47 )

Intégral Ruedi Baur imagines a minimal and “poetic” wayfinding system for the Vienna Airport.

Spagnola Associate’s low-tech wonder wall

Graphic Departure

Workspace ( 48 )

( 26 )

Salt Lake Rising

Environmental graphics play a starring role in Salt Lake City’s new mixed-use development. ( 32 )

Of the Earth

Ralph Appelbaum Associates lets nature be the hero at the new Natural History Museum of Utah. ( 38 )

By the Numbers In Tasmania, Futago marks an historic waterfront trail with interpretive sculpture.

Out of Africa

Garth Walker nurtures a design language rooted in the African experience. ( 49 )

ijusi Magazine

In a special supplement to eg magazine, a taste of South African vernacular design ( 60 )

Sketchbook

Inside Lee Skolnick’s head for the design of the Muhammad Ali Center ( 64 )

Up Close

Rockwell Group Lab Co-Chiefs Joshua Walton and James Tichenor

eg magazine — 5

2012 eg SPONSORS AND PATRONS

Our sincere thanks to these companies for their support of eg magazine.

Lead Sponsors Gallagher & Associates Infinite Scale Pentagram Ralph Appelbaum Associates

Patrons C&G Partners ex;it Kate Keating Associates

Sponsors APCO Graphics Cloud Gehshan Associates Hunt Design

For information about sponsorship, contact sara@segd.org

THANK YOU TO OUR 2012 SEGD PROGRAM PARTNERS 3A Composites

DanSign

Nova Polymers

AD/S Companies

Design and Production

Precision Signs

AGI

Digico Imaging

Principle Group

AkzoNobel Coatings

Dixie Graphics

Resource Integrated

APCO Graphics

Fabric Images

Rivermeade Signs

Applied Image

Gable Signs

Sansi North America

Archetype

General Glass International

Signalex

Arlon

General LED

SignComp

ASI Signage

GKD-USA

Sunrise Systems

Avery Dennison

Icon Identity Solutions

Systeme Huntingdon

Bemis/MACtac

iZone

Traxon Technologies

Big Apple

LEDCONN

TFN Architectural Signage

Bitro Group

Matthews Bronze

Vista System

Colite International

Matthews Paint

Visual Graphic Systems

Color-Ad Inc.

Mitsubishi Plastics Composite / Alpolic

Weidner Architectural

CREO Industrial Arts Daktronics

6 — eg magazine

Neiman & Company

Winsor Fireform

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8 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; eg magazine

UP FRONT ( 10 )

Found

Urbanflow, Movement Café, and the American Sign Museum ( 14 )

Review

Joel Katz’s Designing Information ( 16 )

Out There

Concrete Graphics, Trace for iPad, and Visual Magnetics

eg magazine — 9

FOUND

SECTION TITLE

10 — eg magazine

Movement Café

With one of its construction sites located at the gateway to the London 2012 Olympic Games, UK developer Cathedral Group wanted to help the Royal Borough of Greenwich make a good impression. In just 16 days, an ugly demolition area was transformed into a temporary restaurant, performing arts space, and gathering spot called the Movement Café.

Created by British designer and artist Morag Myerscough in collaboration with Olympic Poet and prolific Tweeter Lemn Sissay, the café is an explosion of color, type, and poetry surrounded by an amphitheater. Borrowing words and phrases from one of Sissay’s Twitter poems, Myerscough painted them by hand on large wooden panels positioned over the building. The structure itself is covered in an original hand-painted Myerscough multi-colored geometric pattern.

The poem is also reproduced on the hoarding surrounding the site.

(Photo: Cathedral Group)

Once one of the world’s poorest countries, South Korea is experiencing rapid development and explosive growth in accumulated wealth. The skyscrapers and luxury residential towers emerging in the port city of Busan are in stark contrast to the simple fishing-dominated economy that many Koreans still rely on.

Commissioned by public arts organization Public Delivery, German artist Hendrik Beikirch sought to capture that contrast in his new mural hand painted on the façade of the Busan fisher union building. A dramatic counterpoint to the new Daniel Libeskinddesigned Haeundae I’Park residential tower behind it, at 230 ft. high it is the tallest mural in Asia. The weathered face of an aging fisherman is a reminder that Korea’s new wealth is not being shared by all. Tapping into the Korean worldview, Beikirch added a statement below the mural that reads: “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.”

(Photo: Hendrik Beikirch)

DNUOF

Changing times

eg magazine — 11

FOUND 12 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; eg magazine

sign museum 2.0 The American Sign Museum moved into its new home in a former parachute factory in Cincinnati.

The new museum includes 19,000 square feet of exhibit space and 28-foot-high ceilings that allow display of its large historic signs, including vintage Howard Johnson, Holiday Inn, Big Boy, and Speedee MacDonald signs.

It also includes a working neon shop, meeting meeting space and an archive of books, photos, and documents reflecting the art, craft, and history of signmaking.

The museum is also getting involved in the local community, coordinating a pilot program called CoSign that brings local artists, small businesses, and sign fabricators together to create effective signage. For more information, www.signmuseum.org.

Urban wayfinding systems are typically a oneway street: designers create signage, mostly static, that delivers information to guide people from Point A to Point B. Adam Greenfield and his Urbanscale practice think wayfinding should be a twosided conversation, and he has collaborated with Helsinki design practice Norkapp to create Urbanflow, an information system that augments traditional wayfinding information with layers of ambient data on the urbanscape.

Users not only access information on conditions such as traffic density, parking and cycling amenities, public transportation, and air and noise quality, but can feed it back into the system by reporting on current conditions.

In Helsinki, the team is replacing 20 non-interactive urban screens (currently used primarily for advertising) with the new system.

(Photos: Urbanscale)

DNUOF

urban flow

eg magazine â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 13

REVIEW

When Information is King

By Sue Gould

Designing Information: Human Factors and Common Sense in Information Design

By Joel Katz Wiley, 2012 This handsome, clearly organized book is itself a prime example of the effective presentation of complex visual information.

The carefully chosen examples, drawn from a vast range of sources and beautifully reproduced, are dissected and considered in their communication intents and effectiveness and analyzed in both content and presentation. Clearly grouped and sequenced, with succinct captions, the visual examples and captions are so effective that in many places the body text is virtually unnecessary. Which is not to say don’t bother with the text—the writing is clear, concise, and witty.

Every section includes references to other sources—not as annoying footnotes—but intelligently located where they are relevant in the text. Additionally, each subject is enriched with references to web sources and links to specific locations in each website, for those wishing a deeper dive.

Katz opens by drawing critical distinctions between visual Information, UNinformation, NONInformation, MISinformation, and DISinformation, each explained with spoton examples.

The well known, brilliant example of Minard’s 1869 graphic representation of Napoleon’s march on Moscow, made famous to designers by Edward Tufte, is analyzed and examined in multiple alternative configurations, each designed to focus on specific aspects and purposes of the data.

And though I was afraid he’d lose steam by the time he got to it, the last section, dealing with wayfinding, is rich with examples from all over the world, from 13th century trade route maps to the obligatory subway map comparisons, and provides a capsule discussion of the most critical issues in wayfinding.

The lively text expands into a series of discussions that deal with digital as well as hardware wayfinding: heads-up directions and mapping, signs and arrows, scale and adjacency, movement network genealogy, maps vs. diagram, guiding the traveler then and now, information release sequence, egress sequence, and caveats about “(Ir)rational Innovation and the Perils of Alphabetization.”

This book is a resource that every designer will want to keep handy for both inspiration and reference.

Sue Gould is president of Lebowitz | Gould | Design, a New York firm specializing in branding and wayfinding.

Signs and arrows

Arrows in wayfinding have two intrinsic meanings, the literal and the theoretical.

Literal arrows mean that if you walk or drive in this direction you will be on your way to your destination, or at least to the next sign. This is practical information.

“Easily locate the ‘greatest hits’; make an enormously complicated piece of architecture understandable; and accommodate the movement of art as collections were relocated over time.

“To help visitors find the right ‘neighborhood,’ an architecturally based numerical sign system keyed to a paper guide.

The concept expanded to geographic zones or numbered ‘arrondissements’ (like Paris itself ) and included clusters of galleries….”

Recently, Ken Carbone wrote: “This down arrow meaning straight confounds me and is the only thing I don’t love about Paris.”

Unfortunately, CSA’s system was replaced, and the Louvre’s current wayfinding system is confusing and ambiguous, notwithstanding its delightful and entertaining prohibitory signs.

Theoretical arrows reference that some destination you may (or may not) be interested in is in a particular direction. It may be very distant, and your ability to get there on your own is very likely between difficult and impossible. The image at the bottom left of the facing page is an example.

Every culture has its own approach to arrows, which can be very confusing in a place that is not your own. For as long as I can remember, France and Italy used road signs whose arrow was the shape of the sign: directions were either to the left or to the right. This required turning the sign at much as 45° from your line of sight to indicate that you were to continue straight, thereby significantly decreasing the functionality of the information. The U.K. loves roundabouts, and there is at least one example of a roundabout with five sub-roundabouts.

No, no, not down, you’re already underground. There is no further down in this location, although there may be stairs down to maintenance spaces.

The down arrows in front of the up stair are particularly amusing.

These destination are neither down nor to the left. American wayfinding designers would use arrows pointing up, meaning straight ahead, confident that the pedestrians looking for these destinations would not walk into a fence.

Jock Kinneir

157

156

By definition, the arrow meaning straight ahead has to be either up or down. In the U.S., of course, the up-arrow means straight ahead; in France, however, it means the opposite. A long time ago I got completely lost in the Louvre, looking for the Nike of Samothrace, continually searching for down stairways (and taking them) instead of just walking straight ahead.

Theoretical arrows—not to be used either because of travel mode or the distances involved—on signposts these days are often intended to be playful, although at one time they were functional. Since the advent of ubiquitous air travel, they have become something of a nonfunctioning throwback: quaint, but in a way contradictory to experience. At any airport, all destinations lie in only one direction: the terminal.

Read David Gibson. The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places.

See also What’s up?; Map or diagram?; Page 208 center left; Page 209

Entebbe airport, 1964. North is to the right in the photograph at near right.

5

:

bottom right.

The 180° arrow on this temporary sign in Paris at Les Halles addresses and solves the problem of guiding people to destinations behind them.

FIND ING YOU R WAY?

Completed in 1989, Carbone Smolen Agency’s wayfinding plan for the Louvre used an ingenious gridded “neighborhood” concept to accomplish the following objectives:

It is sad but true today that most of us take our surroundings for granted….

Direction signs and street names…are as vital as a drop of oil in an engine, without which the moving parts would seize up.

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7/30/12 4:08 PM

Ideas for a book, website, exhibit, or space review? Contact pat@segd.org

Instant: The Story of Polaroid

By Christopher Bonanos The Phaidon Archive of Princeton Architectural Graphic Design Press, 2012 Phaidon, 2012 In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, Polaroid was the coolest technology company on the planet, an innovation machine that cranked out one must-have product after another. (Sound familiar? It’s no wonder Steve Jobs called Edwin Land, Polaroid’s visionary founder, a personal hero and modeled Apple after Polaroid.)

In Instant: The Story of Polaroid, New York magazine editor Christopher Bonanos looks behind the scenes at the company’s history, from its 1937 beginnings in Land’s garage to its introduction of the first instant camera in 1948, its meteoric rise in popularity and adoption by artists such as Ansel Adams and Andy Warhol, and its dramatic collapse in the 2000s. It’s both the classic story of American ingenuity and a cautionary tale about companies that lose their creative edge.

Sign Painters

By Faythe Levine and Sam Macon Princeton Architectural Press, 2012

Phaidon’s sweeping In the not-too-distant international survey of past—before CAD, graphic design has been die-cut vinyl lettering, described as “a inkjet printers, or CNC typographic box of routers—signs were delights” and a magic pill hand-lettered with for creative block. brush and paint.

With entries dating In Sign Painters, from the advent of documentary mechanical filmmakers Faythe reproduction through Levine and Sam Macon present day, this pay homage to the art of book-in-a-box includes a sign painting and broad swath of design document its history work—more than 500 through the stories and entries ranging from work of its most skilled newspapers, magazines, practitioners, from the posters, and new vanguard working advertisements to solo to collaborative typefaces, logos, shops such as San corporate design, Francisco’s New environmental graphic Bohemia Signs and New design, and moving York’s Colossal Media’s graphics. Best of all, its Sky High Murals. contents can be sorted “These painters knew chronologically, about optical illusions, alphabetically, by that some letters like O designer, or by category and S need to go a shade to create your own box of higher and lower than inspiration. the baselines to appear equal in the lineup,” says legendary artist and former sign painter Ed Ruscha in the foreword.

“This is something you take to heart.”

Revisiting the Sixties

By Ronald Shakespear Self published “Today, we know Ronald Shakespear as a designer [and SEGD Fellow] with a wide portfolio of celebrated identity and environmental graphics projects. But in the 1960s, one of his primary modes of visual expression was portraiture, harnessing black and white photography to capture friends and celebrities in intimate moments. In Visiting the Sixties, he shares these photographs again—and today, with the benefit of time and the breadth of his design career, we can appreciate the threads that tie these photos to the rest of Shakespear’s body of work.”

“Like his most successful logos, these portraits are simple gestures and yet they are iconic in their ability to communicate a great deal within a modest format. His portrait of Jorge Luis Borges is a sketch of the poetphilosopher in the formal elegance of his office in National Library of Argentina— an affectionate and faithful study of this public figure.”

—Leslie Wolke in the Foreword to Revisiting the Sixties

To purchase Revisiting the Sixties, contact nataliachasco@ shakespearweb.com.

eg magazine — 15

OUT THERE

A

B

C

D

Innovative materials, products & technology

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B C A

visual magnetics

The Morpholio Project’s Trace app allows designers to sketch on digital trace paper using their iPads.

Users can draw on imported images or backgrounds, make notes and comments, and email them to collaborators. The digital tracing paper can be layered or removed with a “remember” or “forget” action, documenting the generative design process.

Layer opacities can be also be adjusted.

Visual Magnetics matches magnetic-receptive technology with high-quality digital print media. Using its MagnaMedia wide-format printable substrates— including writable surfaces, photo-quality films, digital fabrics, and new Digital Veneers—designers can create entire environments for applications such as wall murals, signage and wayfinding, point-ofpurchase displays, and dry-erase or chalkboard wall-coverings.

(Photo: School of Visual Arts Innovation Lab. Mural by Simo Neri)

www. mymorpholio.com

visualmagnetics.com

Trace

flypaper connect

D

concrete graphics

Flypaper Connect is a bundle of software tools for creating real-time databased content for Flypaper digital signage programs. It drives data to digital sign display screens while creating a two-way bridge between the software and cloud-based servers and databases. It can deliver real-time content from web services and proprietary databases to digital displays based on user preferences and interactions.

Concrete Graphics™ are digitally produced, durable surfaces designed for long-term use outdoors and indoors. The non-skid, PVC-free surfaces can be used on sealed and unsealed concrete, asphalt, brick, tile, marble, and vinyl and are easily removable, without leaving a residue. The finished surface is reflective and meets international anti-slip safety standards.

(Photo: Seattle Design Week, wayfinding project by SEGD Seattle Chapter)

flypaper.com

concretegraphics.com

eg magazine — 17

Commarts/Stantec

Selbert Perkins Design

Sussman Prezja Design

Callison

FEATURES ( 20 )

Graphic Departure

Intégral Ruedi Baur imagines a minimal and “poetic” wayfinding system for the Vienna Airport. ( 26 )

Salt Lake Rising

Environmental graphics play a starring role in Salt Lake City’s new mixed-use development. ( 32 )

Of the Earth

Ralph Appelbaum Associates lets nature be the hero at the new Natural History Museum of Utah. ( 38 )

By the Numbers

In Tasmania, Futago marks an historic waterfront trail with interpretive sculpture.

2 eg magazine — 19

Client Flughafen Wien AG Budget 3,5 Mio € (static signage) 2 Mio € (dynamic signage/ LED) Project Area 150,000m2 Opened June 2012 Design Intégral Ruedi Baur Paris & Zurich Design Team Ruedi Baur art direction, Eva Kubinyi project manager, graphics, Simon Burkart, project manager, 3D design, Christina Poth, Axel Steinberger, Wanja Ledowski, Maria Roszkowska, Gabriela Wolfertz, David Esser pictograms Fabrication Forster Verkehrs- und Werbetechnik GmbH static media, Annax GmbH (LED), Fill Metallbau GmbH display cases/lightboxes Architects P.arc Itten Brechbühl Baumschlager Eberle Photos © Intégral Ruedi Baur, Andreas Körner

GRAPHIC DEPARTURE 20 — eg magazine

I On the terminal’s glass façade, oversized 1.5-meterhigh letters in Fedra Sans indicate gates. Designers created a blurred effect with the letters, which were digitally printed with pixelated white on transparent vinyl.

The concept behind Intégral Ruedi Baur’s wayfinding system for Vienna International Airport was to create an effect of light and suspension, like an airplane at liftoff. Departure monitors appear to float behind a glass wall. Internally illuminated wayfinding signs achieve an illusion of graceful motion through textured vinyl lettering, a soft counterpoint to the terminal’s stark architecture.

n some ways, airports are quintessential non-places. With their long corridors, labyrinthine layouts, and cacophonous soundtrack of arrivals/departures and passengers speaking multiple languages, it’s easy to forget exactly where you are.

Sometimes the architecture is a clue. Other times, local artwork gives a sense of place.

Rarely is an airport wayfinding system so unique as to indicate “You are Here.”

At the new Vienna International Airport Skylink terminal (“Check-in 3”), Paris-based Intégral Ruedi Baur sought to create a contemporary signage and wayfinding program that would integrate well with the black-and-white architecture, provide the right information at the right time, and mark the entrance to the central European hub with a bit of poetry and a unique sense of place.

“The airport is not just an international territory, it’s also an entrance to a territory, so the aesthetic of the signage has to connect with the aesthetic of the country,” explains Baur. “Early on in the project, we spoke about transparency and lucidity and about how to elevate the sign system.

That was our first intention.”

The design team was able to work with architects at P.arc Itten Brechbuhl Baumschlager Eberle from project launch in 2004, giving them the opportunity to position signage only and exactly where needed; ensure seamless installation on walls, floors, and ceilings; and develop an aesthetic that complements rather than competes with the architecture.

At Vienna International Airport, Intégral Ruedi Baur’s transparent wayfinding system marries minimalist design and poetic touches to create a sense of place.

By Jenny S. Reising

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GRAPHIC DEPARTURE

“ It would have been nearly violent for us to introduce color in that environment. We also knew that life would come into the airport—in the form of ads, shops, and restaurants—and that those elements would bring in color. We thought it would be better not to shout louder than they did.”

Translucency and lucidity One challenge for Intégral Ruedi Baur was designing a new system that would be as efficient as the yellow signage in the existing terminal without using yellow. Instead of using bright colors, the designers chose a black and white signage system that mimics the minimalist architecture.

“It would have been nearly violent for us to introduce color in that environment,” explains Eva Kubinyi, graphics project manager. “We also knew that life would come into the airport—in the form of ads, shops, and restaurants—and that those elements would bring in color. We thought it would be better not to shout louder than they did.”

The black-and-white system also allowed the introduction of a simple wayfinding logic: follow the white signs through the terminal until you find the black signs, at the gates and beyond.

The idea driving the sign design was to create an effect of light and suspension, like an airplane at liftoff. The Intégral team achieved this subtly by adding texture to the vinyl sign lettering, creating a blurred effect intended as a soft counterpoint to the potential coldness of the terminal’s high-contrast architecture.

Wall-hung and ceiling-mounted signage is primarily digitally printed vinyl on glass panels.

Signs leading passengers to their gates are white with transparent vinyl lettering digitally printed using rasterized black ink that lends an illusion of motion to the typography.

“We wanted to personalize the sign system while keeping it functional in terms of information and legibility,” says Kubinyi. “From a distance, you don’t see the rasterization of the letters. Then when you look closely, it’s a surprise.”

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The glass panels are also silkscreened to create a tapered effect of opacity, with pixelated dots gradating from heavily condensed at the top to more loosely condensed in the middle and then to transparent on the bottom. The opaque-glass effect at the top of the sign also conceals the technical equipment and internal LED illumination.

Once passengers are at their gates, white signage transitions to black. There and in the baggage claim area, black signs with white vinyl lettering feature black pixelated dots on the glass panels transitioning from heavy at the top to transparent at the bottom. The black signs are externally rather than internally illuminated. To achieve the right effect, the designers worked with Susanna Fritscher—an Austrian artist who specializes in creating visual aspects of appearing and disappearing—and then went through multiple rounds of prototyping.

Reimagining the typical airport arrivals monitor, the Intégral team created a 40- by 4.5meter display that consists of white LED panels behind existing glass walls, with a white film on the glass adding a translucent effect. The left side of the wall displays flights that have already landed, while the right side shows flights en route. The design team originally intended flights to be shown at the top of the display when they depart, then gradually “descend” to a lower part of the display before “landing” at the bottom left of the display when they arrive at the terminal.

The black-and-white system allowed the introduction of a simple wayfinding logic: follow the white signs through the terminal until you find the black signs, at the gate and beyond.

ZeitRaum, an installation

by ARS Electronica (Linz, Austria) at the Skylink security checkpoint, consists of a series of interactive screens activated by a passengerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach. A cloud of letters cascades down the wall and when they reach the bottom, the letters coalesce into texts that form the topography of a landscape.

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GRAPHIC DEPARTURE

Typography and pictograms To help create a sense of place, Baur used Fedra Sans typeface—designed by Peter Bil’ak, a Dutch typographer with Slovakian roots—that is optimized for central European languages, complete with all of the accent marks. Bil’ak originally designed Fedra— which actually translates to “bright”—for another project he had worked on with Baur that was ultimately cancelled. Baur describes it as “modern, but a little bit free and exciting for the eyes, with the ‘e’ on a diagonal—a little gesture that is central European in flavor and expression.”

The typography is used to its fullest on a 12-meter-long “Welcome to Vienna” graphic that displays the phrase in 30 different languages. It is also used to slightly blurred effect in the oversized 1.5-meter-high white vinyl gate letters that appear on the building’s glass front.

The Baur team designed a system of 150 pictograms that resemble internationally familiar symbols, but complement Fedra in spirit. “I don’t think you need to have the same pictograms from airport to airport,” Baur insists. “You can have a central recognizable element but change it, play with it a bit so that all the world doesn’t look similar.”

The pictograms appear in digitally printed black vinyl on the glass panels, with a dark blue square on the back side of the glass that produces a shadow effect.

Challenges As with any signage project that is eight years in the making, there are bound to be some bumps in the road. The airport management team changed over twice, the project was halted midway for architectural reasons, and the signage had to be revised four years into the project, then redone again six months before the terminal opened when the airport needed a way to connect the old terminal with the new one.

And as in most projects, some beloved design ideas fell to the cutting-room floor. Several elements that Intégral Ruedi Baur designed to add regional flavor were omitted at the last minute, including a welcome wall with Austrian colloquialisms and walls with poetry by a noted Austrian poet planned for corridors throughout the terminal.

Some visitors, particularly visually impaired travelers, have argued that the subtle visual effects Baur’s team created for the signs hinder their legibility. Kubinyi says last-minute changes to the architecture, specifically cutting half of the ceiling lighting, resulted in some signs not being as well-lit as they should be. The airport management team is currently working to resolve the issues, and the design team has proposed ways to fix the problems.

For the LED arrivals display, airport management decided to only show flights as they arrive at the airport rather than the more fun graphic element of showing flights en route and as they descend.

Baur says that while the changes are frustrating, he is pleased with the overall system.

“I’m very happy that we did something a little bit complex, and in the end, the subtraction of elements is not obvious to people—they don’t know what they’re missing.”

Jenny Reising is a Cincinnati-based writer and editor.

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The system of 150 pictograms was inspired by the Fedra Sans typeface and rasterized to create a textured effect. Rather than placing the pictograms in solid square backgrounds, a darker blue behind the pictogram creates a shadow effect.

The 12- by 2.5-meter “Welcome to Vienna” sign is digitally printed with the welcoming phrase in 30 different languages—a nod to the central European countries the Skylink terminal serves.

A 40-meter-long, 4.5-meterhigh arrivals display functions almost as public art. Arrivals are indicated on white LED panels behind an existing glass wall covered in translucent white vinyl.

Intégral originally planned a more dynamic display that would use light to trace flights en route to the airport. eg magazine — 25

SECTION TITLE Clients City Creek Reserve Inc., Taubman Project Area 23 acres Opened March 2012 Design Selbert Perkins Design Collaborative

SALT LAKE RISING

Environmental graphics help a new mixed-use center celebrate Salt Lake Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s past and revitalize its future.

By Pat Matson Knapp

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Design Team Robin Perkins partner in charge; John Lutz principal/project director; Youn Choi design director; Tim Cohan, Jamal Kitmitto senior designers, Hanks Krake project manager Fabrication CREO Industrial Arts primary fabricator, YESCO food court signage Architecture ZGF Architects, Callison, Hobbs + Black Architects, FFKR Architects Consultants SWA Group landscape architecture; Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design lighting; WET Design water features; Jacobsen Construction, Okland Construction general contractors Photos Jason Koenig/JKoe Photography

W

hen Brigham Young led the pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Missouri west to their new home in Utah in 1847, the Mormon founders settled along a mountain creek that flowed past what is now the center of Salt Lake City.

In the 1920s, that natural spring-fed creek was covered over by development, but it still courses underground through the city founded by the Latter-day Saints and on to the Jordan River and beyond, into the Great Salt Lake.

So when the church undertook a sustainably designed urban community on 23 acres adjacent to Temple Square, it seemed natural to name it for the creek that inspired Young and his followers to end their pilgrimage.

City Creek includes the 700,000-square-foot retail centerpiece City Creek Center, as well as five residential towers, 1.4 million square feet of office space, and a 5,000-space underground parking garage. The only U.S. regional shopping center opened in 2012, it includes 90 stores and restaurants and some unique amenities: a retractable glass roof, a pedestrian skybridge, fire-andwater fountains, two 18-foot waterfalls, and a replica of the historic creek.

“More than anything we wanted to create some great public spaces,” says Bill Williams, Director of Design for Special Projects with the Mormon Church.

“We looked to the model of great European cities, with their sense of pedestrian scale and their integration of water features and public art. At City Creek, landmark elements and environmental graphics were central to developing a strong sense of place.”

City Creek, Salt Lake City’s new 23-acre mixed-used community, is adjacent to Temple Square in the heart of the city. The 25-ft.tall light towers flanking fire-and-water fountains are part of the environmental graphics program created by Selbert Perkins Design, with fabrication by CREO Industrial Arts. eg magazine — 27

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Directories are internally illuminated aluminum cabinets with pushthrough headers and screenprinted text. Intricate waterjet-cut filigree sign posts integrate the City Creek signage with the visual language of the city’s existing downtown signage system.

With its 5,000-space underground parking garage also split by Main Street and divided into four levels, environmental graphics were especially important. To help visitors remember their garage locations, Selbert Perkins used bold colors and themes based on indigenous animals. CREO coordinated painted and vinyl graphics for 36 elevator cores.

At street level, a pedestrian skybridge links the two blocks and unifies the site. It also created an iconic branding platform. Halo-lit aluminum reverse channel letters provide a nighttime glow.

Triple-duty EGD

Environmental graphics played at least three essential roles in the project: unifying the site that consists of two huge city blocks bifurcated by Main Street, guiding visitors to and through a challenging underground, and lending an interpretive voice to the story of City Creek.

“We knew it was critical to make the two blocks work together as one site,” says Ron Loch, Vice President of Planning and Design for developer Taubman. “It took strong planning and wayfinding to make sure that people on either block knew what the other block had to offer.” Key to the solution, he adds,

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was the new pedestrian skybridge over Main Street that allows the two blocks to function as one. It also became an iconic branding structure for City Creek.

“Circulation wise, we had to carefully study and really understand where people were coming from for all the different uses and design a clear, concise wayfinding system that worked hand-in-hand with the environmental graphics and storytelling elements,” says John Lutz, Principal with Selbert Perkins Design.

Garage wayfinding and graphics were critical because like the site, the huge garage is also

divided by Main Street and split into four levels. “When parking is below grade, it seems even more disorienting to people,” Loch observes. “At City Creek, it was especially challenging to make sure people know how to get from their cars to retail or other destinations and back again.”

Selbert Perkins’ solution was a memorable graphics system based on animals indigenous to the mountainous region. Like the project’s other storytelling components, the garage graphics provide a solid connection to the region’s natural history and sense of place.

hen parking is below grade, it seems even â&#x20AC;&#x153; Wmore disorienting to people. At City Creek, it

was especially challenging to make sure people know how to get from their cars to retail or other destinations and back again.

â&#x20AC;?

Directing visitors around the site required more than 200 wayfinding signs, internally illuminated cabinets with push-through acrylic text and the waterjet cut filigree ornamentation. Selbert Perkins chose Futura as the typeface for wayfinding.

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SECTION TITLE SALT LAKE RISING

A rich story

A complex multi-use project (12 years in the making), a conservative client, and the need to interact with a large multidisciplinary team were all challenges, but Lutz says the bottom line was telling the City Creek story.

“Creating a branded experience in this type of environment is challenging,” says Lutz. “The scale is intense, you’re dealing with so many different physical components, including historical landmarks and an existing city streetscape, and in addition, you’re trying to address the needs of people shopping, going to meetings, visiting residents, and going to work.”

The center is divided into four quadrants—mountains, canyons, valley, and wetlands—and each quadrant features environmental graphics relating to the natural history and animal life of that ecosystem. Graphics, landscaping, railings, light fixtures, pavement treatments, and architectural detailing all support the stories for each. A “creek grass” design that Selbert Perkins used for the City Creek logo is repeated site-wide, providing a unifying element across all the quadrants.

Interpretive elements range from large-scale to the smallest of details including animal tracks sandblasted into pavements and even down to doggy-bag dispensers emblazoned with the City Creek logo.

“It was all about creating a sense of discovery and a place where people would want to be,” says Lutz.

“What the LDS Church and Taubman have created here is a new downtown for Salt Lake City, and we wanted it to be a place people would visit and tell their friends about.”

Timeless aesthetic

With all its rich storylines, the environmental graphics program also had to be sensitive to the site, which is next door to Temple Square and literally in the shadow of Salt Lake Temple.

“We believed the traditional architecture found in and around Temple Square has stood the test of time,” explains Williams. “We wanted to reflect that solidity in the use of enduring materials—stone and brick and bronze.”

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For the environmental graphics program, that translated into a demand for quality craftsmanship and attention to detail. CREO Industrial Arts was chosen as the primary fabricator, tasked with creating 100 different types of signage and graphic elements installed in 2,500 locations across the two city blocks. The project’s signature identity elements—three stately 25-foot-tall obelisk light towers and three 20-foot-tall versions of the same pillars—were a prime example of the attention to detail required in the two-and-ahalf-year fabrication process.

“The challenge was to create the convincing appearance of an ornate cast-bronze old-world monument within the budgetary constraints of retail EGD,” says Patrick Angelel, Principal at CREO. To deliver on that challenge, CREO achieved a detailed cast-bronze look by layering hydrocut aluminum pieces developed through 3D modeling and blanketing them with a faux finish designed to emulate patina’d bronze.

Producing the glass orbs atop the obelisks required significant R&D to determine not only the correct production method for the orbs, but also how to suspend them above the pillars without exerting so much pressure on the glass that it would crack. “Ultimately, we consulted with local glass artisans who led us to a creative casting process that was durable and fit within the budget,” adds Angelel.

Signs of success

The development team considers City Creek Center a success on multiple fronts, not the least of which is its goal of being a prime downtown destination and a memorable shopping experience. It is on track to exceed Taubman’s goal of attracting 10 million people a year to downtown Salt Lake City.

Williams says he also considers the project a success and understands that environmental graphics play a huge role.

“Environmental graphics add character and story, and it’s that intimate, layered detail that people remember. If you ignore it, you’ve really missed an opportunity.”

Alongside the recreated creek built as part of the project, freestanding porcelain enamel storytelling totems educate visitors about the history of the site.

To achieve the look of cast bronze within budget, CREO created intricate detail by layering hydrocut aluminum pieces developed through 3D modeling, then covering them with a faux-bronze finish. Bronze 10-ft.-diameter bronze medallions surround the base of the towers.

reating a branded experience in this type of “ Cenvironment is challenging. The scale is

intense, you’re dealing with so many different physical components, including historical landmarks and an existing city streetscape, and in addition, you’re trying to address the needs of people shopping, going to meetings, visiting residents, and going to work.

”

Storytelling drilled down to the smallest of details. Creek grasses incorporated in the City Creek logo unify the site, appearing in elements ranging from the outdoor fireplace to doggy-bag dispensers.

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EARTH

Ennead Architects and Ralph Appelbaum Associates worked closely to blur the lines between the museum interiors and the natural environment. Here, canted MDF panels evoke the landscape visible through the expansive gallery windows.

The copper-sheathed Natural History Museum of Utah is tucked into the foothills of the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. (Photo: ©Jeff Goldberg/Esto)

Client The Natural History Museum of Utah at Rio Tinto Center

The new Natural History Museum of Utah uses organic forms, earthy materials, and a sympathetic environmental graphics program to fill its role as “the trailhead to Utah.”

By Pat Matson Knapp

N

estled in the foothills of the Wasatch Range, with a brilliant blue sky and snow-dusted peaks as its backdrop, the new copper-sheathed Natural History Museum of Utah looks as much a part of its surroundings as the mountains themselves.

Making the new museum an extension of the natural environment— like a hike through the canyon—was a goal shared by the museum, Ennead Architects, and the gold-star design team tasked with creating its exhibitions, wayfinding, and environmental graphics.

In operation for more than 40 years, the museum saw in its new beginnings the opportunity to re-envision how it uses architecture, its vast collections, and media and

technology to immerse visitors in the natural formation of life and land around Salt Lake City.

“We knew we wanted a museum whose architecture, site, and exhibitions were integrated and conceived as one,” says Sarah George, Executive Director.

The result is a museum rooted solidly in place, purpose-built to house a highly respected regional collection inside while showcasing the natural wonders outside.

“Early on we determined this would be a museum that continues to look inward to research and scholarship but that also looks outward to the amazing natural and cultural landscapes that surround it,” says George. “We always envisioned it as the trailhead to the state of Utah.”

Budget $17 million (exhibitions) $175,000 (wayfinding and donor recognition) Project Area 153,000 sq. ft.

Opened November 2011 Exhibition Design Ralph Appelbaum Associates

Environmental Graphic Design Poulin + Morris Exhibit Fabrication Kubik/Maltbie Associates primary fabricator, Fusion Graphics direct-tosubstrate printing Signage Fabrication Boyd Sign Systems Architecture Ennead Architects LLP design architect, GSBS architect of record, Design Workshop landscape architecture Photos Chuck Choi (except as noted)

eg magazine — 33

of the EARTH

COLLABORATIVE BY NATURE A highly collaborative design team delivered on that vision. The interpretive program by Ralph Appelbaum Associates served as the basis for, then was developed in tandem with the architectural plans by Ennead. Later in the process, graphic design firm Poulin + Morris conceived a wayfinding and donor recognition program reflecting the architecture and interpretive plan.

And Infinite Scale, a Salt Lake City design firm, created an iconic mark, brand platform, and graphic standards that bridge web, print, and three-dimensional applications.

As a result of their collaboration, the museum seems at one with its surroundings. Breathtaking vistas outside often seem like extensions of the interior landscape. The circulation plan includes an expansive canyon-like public space as well as switchbacks, bridges, and elevation changes that evoke a hike through the canyon. Exhibitions are designed as a system of trails, allowing visitors to choose their own path. And earthy materials, organic faceted forms, and a unified approach to graphics underscore the beauty of the natural world and clarify the museum’s offerings.

Located on the campus of the University of Utah, staffed by the university and owned by the state of Utah, the new 153,000-square-foot museum (built to LEED Gold standards) was more than 15 years in the making. In the late 1990s, Appelbaum worked with George and her staff to create a conceptual plan for a new museum to replace the facility they were rapidly outgrowing. In 2003 and 2004, Appelbaum returned to complete interpretive master planning.

“To be involved in planning phases prior to design is a really unique opportunity, and it allowed us to have a strong hand in shaping the building around the content and visitor experience,” says Tim Ventimiglia, Appelbaum’s project director for the museum and now director of the firm’s Berlin office.

“We spent many weeks a year exploring the state, talking to countless Utahans and going on camping and hiking expeditions to help us understand the stories we’d be telling,” he adds.

“More than 200 community members were involved in our content development meetings. We frontload our process with lots of dialogue and exploration, and we channeled all of that into an interpretive master plan that serves as a foundation document for design.”

When the museum issued its RFP for a design architect, Appelbaum helped with the shortlist and watched the architects respond to the master plan.

Ennead was selected and the longstanding relationship between the two firms, as well as landscape architects Design Workshop, “allowed us to create a building and site really in tune with the interpretive ideals for the project,” says Ventimiglia.

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“ We jokingly call it our lava lamp floor, but visitors love it and it really conveys the story we’re trying to tell.”

EXHIBITIONS: INSIDE/OUT/AUTHENTIC The museum exhibition space is divided into nine thematic experiences that use both traditional media and new technology to engage visitors.

Each gallery is linked to specific “view sheds” around the site. The Lake gallery, for example, commands a view to the Great Salt Lake, while the Life gallery looks out onto grass-covered foothills and the snow-covered Wasatch Range. Terraces off the galleries encourage visitors to flow in and out of the building.

In the Lake gallery, a sophisticated topographical floor graphic of the Great Salt Lake testifies to the level of authenticity that museum staff and exhibition designers were working to achieve. To show visitors how the current Great Lake is just a remnant of a much larger lake formed during the Pleistocene era, the team inscribed the historical contours into the floor using a traditional terrazzo technique, mixing actual lake sediment and fossilized remains into the design. To represent the present-day contours, they used an Italian-made gel material that simulates the look and feel of water.

Matching the dimensions and tolerances of the gel contours with the terrazzo was a monumental task that required laser measurements, full-scale drawings, and an MDF template shipped crosscountry to ensure the final product was accurate.

“We jokingly call it our lava lamp floor, but visitors love it and it really conveys the story we’re trying to tell,” says Tim Lee, Senior Exhibit Designer on the museum staff.

Typography was a critical underpinning of the interpretive program. The Appelbaum team chose Eidetic Neo (serif ) and Reykjavik (sansserif ) to unify the exhibition content, and they were later adopted for environmental graphics and brand identity.

In the Lake gallery, interactives incorporate smell and sound to immerse visitors in the natural history of the Great Salt Lake. To show how the size of the lake has diminished over time, a traditional terrazzo technique inscribes its historical contours, while a unique gel surface outlines the presentday lake.

In the Past Worlds gallery, the dinosaurs are the superstars.

The design team wanted a strong 2D component to complement the amazing fossils, so they commissioned illustrator Doug Henderson to create dramatic, superscaled black and white murals for the space.

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MATERIALS: MDF REVEALED Like the architectural palette, the exhibition materials were chosen to reflect the content: earthy, simple and, Ventimiglia says, “honest.”

MDF became a primary choice both for aesthetic and cost reasons. “As a designer, I like to use materials for what they are in an honest way,” he explains. “Although MDF is used a lot in museum projects for obvious reasons, it’s often hidden behind laminates and paints. But it’s an interesting and versatile material by itself: you can carve it, shape it, cut it thick or thin, and fabricators are accustomed to working with it. It’s often not explored visually or revealed.”

In the Land gallery, MDF panels are another unifying element in the exhibition space, sometimes canted to form canyon-like walls that echo the landscape outside the windows. Ventimiglia’s desire to leverage its natural attributes led to an exploration of direct-to-substrate printing, and he was amazed at the results—and how project fabricators embraced the new territory. But the process was again complex. After primary fabricator Kubik/Maltbie cut the panels to shape in their Toronto and New Jersey shops, they were matched in tone and quality and header text was routed into them, then a clear lacquer finish was applied. Then, the panels were shipped to Salt Lake City so local firm Fusion Graphics could print them.

“It was risky to ship these finished exhibition components across the country to be printed,” explains Ventimiglia. “Usually we print and then cut the substrate to fit, but in this case the printing had to happen over routed text and sometimes across multiple panels, so it had to be aligned perfectly. We pushed the technology to the max. We were lucky to have a fabricator like Maltbie and a printer like Fusion willing to go along on an adventure with us.”

FACETED BRAND IDENTITY Tasked to create a new brand identity and graphic standards for the museum, local firm Infinite Scale launched an exhaustive typographic study of more than 200 fonts, including the two already tapped by Appelbaum for the interpretive program. Ultimately the team liked the idea of a unified system based on just the two typefaces, and built a robust set of graphic guidelines across various media.

For the brand mark itself, Infinite Scale Partner Cameron Smith investigated numerous concepts but was intrigued by the architect’s use of a triangulated grid to set the building into the foothills.

“We extracted the triangles off their grid and started to play with those forms,” says Smith. “I was fascinated by this and also by aerial photos showing buildings from space and by cell-level microscopy.

They both looked the same to me; everything is organic and geometric at the same time.”

From these references, Smith evolved an organic mark made of eight irregular triangles that combine to look somewhat like a mountain, perhaps suggestive of Red Butte Peak, which the museum is set against. “It’s iconic enough that you probably see a mountain first, but you can read whatever you want into it,” Smith explains.

Infinite Scale’s brand mark, nestled against the new museum name in Reykjavik sans-serif, consists of eight irregular triangles that combine to look like a mountain, perhaps suggestive of Red Butte Peak, which the museum is set against.

In the Native Voices gallery, the Appelbaum team designed a modern venue for the traditional storytelling circle. Recessed into the floor with steps for seating, it is encircled by mesh scrims with photo images dye sublimation-printed on the diffuse weave.

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CONNECTING IT ALL When the museum selected Poulin + Morris to design wayfinding and donor recognition elements, fabrication of the exhibitions was underway and Infinite Scale had developed graphic standards to guide the brand identity across web, print, and 3D platforms.

“Our role was to establish a point of view—a visual and graphic direction—for all public information around the site, all the way from code and regulatory signage to directional wayfinding and donor recognition,” says Richard Poulin.

Responding directly to the angles of the architecture and the surrounding mountains, Poulin + Morris designed freestanding wayfinding monuments of brakeformed aluminum with copper-colored silkscreen lettering.

Echoing the architectural palette and materials used in the interpretive program, exterior wayfinding signs are brakeformed Corten steel.

P + M had worked often with Appelbaum and Ennead, and understood the project required a collaborative spirit as well as a deep understanding of the architectural vision, both from a design and circulation standpoint.

“Our approach is always to connect with the architectural vocabulary right away, so that we understand the nuances and references that help us conceptualize our initial work,” Poulin explains.

P + M’s signage design responds to the architecture directly, with bent and formed, faceted freestanding monuments that recall the shapes of the surrounding mountains and the walls of the museum. “There are no right angles or flat surfaces in this building, so you certainly wouldn’t want to put a 90-degree angle or any other simple geometric form in the space,” Poulin points out.

Boyd Sign Systems fabricated the wayfinding signs of brakeformed, thin-mil aluminum with vinyl lettering. The aluminum forms are painted the same creamy white as the walls, with contrasting typography in a color similar to the copper found throughout the museum. “Our goal was to allow the sign forms to recede and become part of the walls, but with highly legible text for wayfinding,” Poulin adds. Exterior signs are the reverse: brakeformed Corten steel with white lettering.

Guiding visitors through the space also meant understanding the untraditional circulation plan.

“From purely an experiential point of view, it seems disorienting. But if you follow the recommended sequence—start at the top and work your way down, it’s very intuitive,” Poulin explains. “There’s no obvious linear route between A and B. It’s designed to allow visitors some choices in how they experience the space.” The museum committed to providing a printed visitor map so that signs didn’t need to include them.

P + M also designed a donor recognition platform that included a copper-paneled primary donor element in the main entrance, a secondary donor wall, and a range of recognition levels from gallery spaces to individual exhibits.

A NATURAL SUCCESS Executive Director Sarah George says that by many measures, the new museum is a resounding success.

Its goal was to attract 255,000 visitors in the first year and almost 400,000 people have passed through the doors. It exceeded membership goals by 50% in the first year. Its public spaces are constantly booked by outside groups, and it has received plenty of media attention, both national and international.

When George looks around her, though, she is most satisfied by the reactions of visitors and their obvious ease in the space. “It’s a dramatic space, but not a daunting one,” she says. “People walk in and gasp when they see The Canyon, but they feel comfortable. They walk through the exhibits and the learning labs and they’re really engaged. I wanted the museum to be a very welcoming place, and it is.” eg magazine — 37

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By the Numbers

# 313 seems incongruous bobbing

among the boats in the River Derwent, but pulls visitors onto the public jetty to investigate. Built by a professional shipwright out of aluminum and anchored to the river bottom like a boat, it represents the number of vessels built in Battery Point at the height of its shipbuilding era. “The guy who installed it said, ‘This is officially the weirdest bloody thing that I’ve ever had to moor,’” laughs Castle.

(Photo: Jonathan Wherrett) 38 — eg magazine

Futago designs interpretive sculptures to mark an historic waterfront trail.

By Pat Matson Knapp

# Interpretive text is integrated

with the sculpture, rendered on gray and orange porcelain enamel panels that also include simple wayfinding information. To unify the nine trail markers, Futago chose Helvetica Neue for both the interpretive text and the sculptural forms. (Photo: Luke Burgess)

# Simple, bright orange wayfinding markers are positioned between the sculptures, often providing only an arrow and the sculpture number.

(Photo: Luke Burgess)

I

f you zoom in on a map of Tasmania, the island state 240 kilometers south of Australia, and find its capital city of Hobart, you can just about make out the blunt promontory south of town.

Named after the battery of guns established there in 1818 to defend the coast, Battery Point shelters Hobart’s deep-water port to the north and looks south toward Storm Bay and beyond, to the route popular with Antarctic expeditions.

Battery Point is one of Tasmania’s oldest and most historic neighborhoods, its elegant Georgian homes belying the town’s origins as a penal colony. Its rich history, natural beauty, and arts and food scene have made it a popular tourist destination. To

encourage visitors to explore its storied waterfront, Hobart City Council created a walking trail along the foreshore and invited design firms to submit ideas for interpreting its history through public art or interpretation. They chose hometown design firm Futago, who collaborated with sculptor Judith Abell and writer Chris Viney to take on the project.

“Visitors to Hobart are often looking for a local experience and the sculpture trail offers the opportunity to do something outdoors which is free, educational, and active,” says Jane Castle, Cultural Programs Coordinator for the council. “The project also provided an opportunity to show the potential fusion between art and interpretation.” eg magazine — 39

By the Numbers SECTION TITLE

# In their only departure from

Helvetica, Futago chose to design 1909—the year of Errol Flynn’s birth—in the fashion of the famous Hollywood sign. Flynn was born in Battery Point and swam at the beach where the 4.5m long by 1.8m high sculpture is located. The numbers are made of Trespa® Meteon® mounted to a steel frame.. (Photo: Jonathan Wherrett)

“Many of the stories gathered about Battery Point hinged on numbers: dates, times, or units of measure that could be used as portals into the past.”

40 — eg magazine

Counting on it The Futago team embarked on its commission with an extensive research phase that included a walk of the 1.9-km-long trail with a City Council historian who pointed out many elements and details the team wouldn’t have uncovered in documents.

“We wanted to thread all of these sites and disparate stories together in a way that was completely unique,” says Judith Abell, Project Manager. “We wanted every site we selected and every material we used to underscore the story we were telling.”

As the research phase unfolded, the team noticed that many of the stories they gathered about Battery Point hinged on numbers: dates, times, or units of measure that could be used as portals into the past.

So Futago’s “sculpture by numbers” concept was born. Each of nine sculptures along the trail is a three-dimensional number that explores one or two linked interpretive stories related to the location. Brief and evocative interpretive text accompanies each sculpture, either embedded within the piece or located as a stand-alone sign nearby.

For example, 1833 tells the story of the New Wharf and its row of sandstone warehouses, which now form the backdrop to Salamanca Place, a popular gathering spot. The sculpture overlooks the historic warehouses, which today house galleries, boutiques, and bistros. 1833 is the year the first warehouse was completed. The sculpture structure is a steel cage filled with stacked sandstone fragments, referencing the material used for construction of the warehouses.

While City Council’s brief called for 25 “markers” along the trail (based on a consultant’s

recommendation), Futago refined the number to nine. “With a limited budget and the desire to focus on material qualities in each sculpture, we thought it best to reduce the overall number and thereby increase the budget for each,” says Abell.

Unique but unified While each sculpture is different in form and material, the team created visual consistency by using a single typeface family and a consistent color scheme.

Futago chose Helvetica Neue as the primary typeface, both for sculptural form and interpretive content. “We felt it offered a really practical shape and weight/family range that we could manipulate depending on the materiality and form of the sculptures,” explains Kate Owen, Futago owner and Senior Designer. “And its clean lines didn’t detract from the interpretive content.”

A bold orange-and-gray graphic identity strengthens the visual links between the sculptures and wayfinding signage. Orange was chosen as the primary color for wayfinding to stand out from the busy urban environment.

Futago devised a two-tiered wayfinding system. First, at the bottom of the interpretive panels accompanying the sculptures, there are simple directions to the next sculpture. “We figure people can remember three directions at most,” says Owen, “So they are told just two simple directions—go right here and left there—and then told to watch for directions along the way.” In between the sculptures, 15 directional markers are affixed to existing infrastructure along the route.

These markers, in the rich orange for easy distance viewing, often carry only the next sculpture number and an arrow.

# 1833, a steel cage filled with

stacked sandstone fragments, refers to the year Battery Pointâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wharf was completed. Brief interpretive text is included on the back side of the sculpture. (Photo: Jonathan Wherrett)

Client Hobart City Council Location Hobart, Tasmania Budget $100,000AUD Project Area 1.9km Open Date November 2010 Design Futago in collaboration with Judith Abell and Chris Viney Design Team Daniel Zika concept and senior project manager, Judith Abell concept and project manager, Kate Owen concept and graphic designer, Chris Viney concept and interpretation research and writing, Scott Christensen design detailing, Jennifer Nichols design detailing, Ingrid Berger, Rebecca Adamczewski junior graphic designers Fabrication Aircon Industries steel/aluminum fabrication and installation, Eye Spy Signs signage fabrication and installation, Bruce Walters/Stone, Steel and Earth Landscaping stonemasonry, Digiglass Australia glass Photos Jonathan Wherrett, Luke Burgess

eg magazine â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 41

By the Numbers SECTION TITLE

“ The project is overtly experimental in its use of materials and made coherent by the common use of numbers.

Also, its simple, evocative forms fit sensitively in a heritage area.”

# 628 nautical miles is the distance

between Hobart and Sydney. The Futago team designed this piece with two graphic layers autoclaved between three pieces of glass. They added a low seat to the precast concrete base for people waiting at the finish line of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. (Photo: Jonathan Wherrett)

42 — eg magazine

Material distinction Futago’s material selections and construction techniques are unique for each sculpture, relating directly to the site-specific interpretive stories. That level of authenticity came with some ferocious fabrication and coordination challenges.

“Our biggest challenge was that each of the elements was custom in a number of ways,” says Abell. “The shapes were custom and the combinations of materials were custom. For example, we had problems with movement of materials in one sculpture because neither of our contractors had every combined resin and concrete in that way.”

The team thought 2000—consisting of a 2.3m by 1.1m photo-etched aluminum plate bent over an existing masonry wall—would be one of the simplest sculptures to fabricate, as it didn’t require a footing, didn’t need to float, and couldn’t be smashed. “What we didn’t realize was how hard it might be to etch a plate this large,” says Abell. “It needed a special bath that we had to have made. We attempted the etching ourselves and the first version failed, which was pretty tough. We had to get specialist help from the University of Tasmania’s art school to get the etching mix and timing right, but when it did work, it was magic!”

Scale was a particular challenge, as the trail winds for almost 2 km against a breathtaking natural backdrop. The sculptures had to stand out in the environment, but not be too obtrusive. The team made full-scale cardboard mock-ups in some cases to ensure they felt right in their context, were visible from the right distances, but wouldn’t obstruct traffic.

Longevity was another significant issue and the team had to factor in rust, material movement with heat and cool, defense against vandalism (or ability to clean if it occurred), and structural stability in the event people decided to climb or jump on the sculptures.

One other significant challenge was coordinating approvals from each of the authorities on land and on water. The project involved three public landowners, one private landowner, 22 sites, 12 different materials, and 20 fabricators. The trail sits within two different planning schemes and on the land of private and public landowners. 313 had to be approved by the port authority. Many of the wayfinding elements had to be approved through the local telecoms company.

Finding treasure Castle says the sculpture trail has been a big success with locals and tourists alike, from schoolkids to cruise-ship visitors. “The project is overtly experimental in its use of materials and made coherent by the common use of numbers. Also, its simple, evocative forms fit sensitively in a heritage area. Council has had lots of positive comments and very few complaints about it— which for a project in the public realm is a resounding endorsement!”

Abell had a gratifying moment one day soon after the trail opened. “While I was checking on the lighting for 24, a stream of school kids raced into the park with maps in their hands shouting, ‘Here it is!’ They were experiencing it at its best, as a kind of treasure trail. I heard one of them say, ‘This is just like The Amazing Race!’”

# 2000 consists of a photo-etched

aluminum plate wrapped over an existing masonry wall. The large plate required a custom-made bath and exacting etching process. 2000 is the annual tonnage of tinned fruit made in the fruit cannery formerly on the site.

The plate features a photo of women walking together on their way to work.

(Photo: Jonathan Wherrett)

# In 1923, Hobart City Council

refused an offer to buy waterfront property for a public park, and the land was subdivided. Their decision changed the architectural style of the area; many of the houses are Art Deco or other modern styles, in contrast to Battery Point’s more typical Georgian architecture. The topiary sculpture, consisting of a wire armature and hardy plants, will eventually grow to fill and form the “1923.” (Photo: Jonathan Wherrett)

eg magazine — 43

Submission Guidelines Deadline: January 31, 2013 Late Deadline: February 14, 2013 For more information visit www.segd.org or call 202.638.5555.

3

Inspiration ( 47 )

Workspace

Spagnola Associates’ low-tech wonder wall ( 48 )

Out of Africa

Garth Walker nurtures a design language rooted in the African experience. ( 49 )

ijusi Magazine

In a special supplement to eg magazine, a taste of South African vernacular design ( 60 )

Sketchbook

Inside Lee Skolnick’s head for the design of the Muhammad Ali Center ( 64 )

Up Close

Rockwell Group Lab Co-Chiefs Joshua Walton and James Tichenor

eg magazine — 45

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WORKSPACE

Want to show off your Workspace? Contact pat@segd.org

Spagnola & Associates When design consultancy Spagnola & Associates moved into new offices in 2011, they didn’t just see empty walls. They saw a blank canvas, “an invitation to imagine.”

With the goal of inspiring creativity, they decided to go back to basics—using the humble pencil as their medium.

Taking advantage of a 20-foot expanse, they hammered 2,804 pencils into pre-drilled holes in the wall. Sounds simple, but like good design, the process was more complex than that. See Spagnola’s stop-motion video on the making of the mural at spagnolaandassociates.com.

eg magazine — 47

SECTION TITLE

OUT OF AFRICA

Garth Walker nurtures a design language rooted in the African experience.

Garth Walker trained as a graphic designer

and photographer at Technikon Natal in Durban in the mid 1970s. In 1995, he founded Orange Juice Design, one of South Africa’s best-known graphic design studios and one of the few with an international reputation. Orange Juice Design was later acquired by advertising giant Ogilvy South Africa as its premium design brand. In 2008, Walker established Mister Walker Design, which has worked for many of South Africa’s top corporate and consumer brands.

But Walker’s real passion lies in developing and encouraging a design language “rooted in the African experience.” Since 1995, he has published ijusi, Africa’s only experimental graphics magazine. He spoke with eg magazine recently before traveling to the United States for an exhibition and lecture tour with Texas State University.

Q What inspired you to start a magazine that celebrates Africa’s distinct visual language?

The two events were coincidental. I’d just started out on my own in 1994 and had no work or clients. So to keep occupied, I designed a magazine using my personal vernacular collection as the starting point. I was lucky with a printer who wanted to approach the ad industry for print, and my first issue was the vehicle. They printed it for free and I then sent it to every design magazine I could find an address for. The rest (as they say) is history. It was and still is a very unscientific mechanism for publishing a magazine. The Africa part was a nobrainer, as living in Africa, I wasn’t going to give Graphis sleepless nights, but could produce a magazine that was truly unique. It still is.

Q How does your work for corporate clients relate to what you do with ijusi?

Corporate pays the bills and keeps the studio going (well sort of ), and ijusi is the fun stuff. The two don’t get to meet very often, as clients are terrified they might “look African” when they want to be seen as “world class.” I stay sane by doing personal work, much of it Q You’ve run two successful design studios in photography (a lifelong obsession) and the balance South Africa. How is design in South Africa different design. Most of that is for magazines/cultural groups/ from design in other parts of the world?

South Africa is like anywhere else design wise. We design famous designers etc. who want “something African” for whatever they are doing back home (like Frankfurt in the international style so we look like London, Paris, or New York (in corporate or brand terms). Like the USA or Paris). (or Europe) we have good design and bad design—though Q How would you describe the uniquely African the best design of New York or London or Zurich is conceptually way beyond our best, as these centers have visual language you celebrate in ijusi?

Basically, “stealing” the visual stimuli around me, and a much older/sophisticated commercial design culture. then re-interpreting it. As Picasso said, “good artists Simply, we are not that design literate (as a nation) but copy, great artists steal...” So I’m a thief. As I was born quickly mimic what’s happening elsewhere. here, live here, and will die here, one could argue I’m stealing from myself (as I’m an African).

Q How has the design culture in South Africa changed in the post-apartheid years?

Q Is the discipline of environmental graphic It’s more “international” and perhaps more “American,” as black South Africans are very USA influenced. We are design recognized in South Africa? Has your practice included much EGD? now operating globally, so we have a need to look more EGD? What’s that? So no, we don’t know what it is; like London, Paris, or New York than we do “African,” which is seen as a problem. South Africa is in some ways haven’t a clue. The little that’s done is by the city architects or property developers and it’s usually bad. the dominant economy in Africa, so we see ourselves as But the stuff ordinary South Africans do is amazing. being on par with the “best in the West”—and Africa is We have the world’s best gravestones, urban squatter where we happen to be located. So post-apartheid has seen a difference, but more catching up than a real change architecture, and vernacular signage, and this is what I’m sharing here. design-wise.

48 — eg magazine

ijusi special paper

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Project: “Wheels” 2010 Santa Monica, CA Artist: Anne Marie Karlsen 58 ft x 51 ft Fireform Graphic Tile

Rated in the Americans for the Arts 2011 ‘Year in Review’ as 1 of 47 of the most outstanding public artworks in the country.

Commissioned by the Santa Monica Arts Commission

Photographs by Bill Short Photography

eg magazine — 59

Lee Skolnick, FSEGD Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership “Most children draw before they can write. I was certainly one of them. Sketching is perhaps the most primal means for identifying and embodying even the barest seed of an idea, for testing and shaping it, and for expressing it in its purest and most distilled form. If one can retain the essence and yet achieve the potential in the realized project that the initial sketch suggests, then the challenging creative journey can be deemed a success. All design is communication.

“For me, sketches are often spur-of-the-moment epiphanies. They are shorthand notes made in the heady rush of ideation, and they can occur anywhere and anytime. While I envy and admire those who keep well organized, uniformly formatted and dated chronicles of their sketches and notes, mine are scattered on napkins, in fragmentary sketchbooks, on loose bits of trace, and on other slips of paper or cardboard. One of my favorites is an airline air-sickness bag, every side of which held initial sketchy plans and elevations of a residential project, and which was later exhibited in a gallery along with the models, drawings, and photos of the built house.”

In conceiving the Muhammad Ali Center (Louisville, Ky.), I was inspired by a few essential elements in the Ali story that I believed the building should embody.

One was the familiar mantra “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

These and other key themes—hope, ascension, striving, protection, and nurturing— evolved through loose, annotated sketches, 3-D explorations, and renderings.

60 — eg magazine

“The sketch is the first, meaning-laden expression, the opening of the conversation with yourself and others.”

eg magazine — 61

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UP CLOSE

Joshua Walton and James Tichenor, Co-Chiefs of Rockwell Group Lab, spend their days blurring the lines between the physical and virtual worlds, using digital technologies to embed interactive experiences in the physical environments Rockwell creates. “We don’t think of digital and physical environmental graphics as ‘either/or,’” says Walton.

“We see them as ‘both/and.’”

They spoke with eg magazine about the mash-up between physical and digital EGD.

What do you do at the Rockwell Group Lab? We explore, experiment, and embed interactive experiences augmented with digital technology in objects, environments, and stories.

Our process relies heavily on iterative prototypes that we build ourselves. Our toolkit includes custom hardware and software for RFID, UPC scanning, video processing, sonar, capacitance, shape memory alloy, LED and lighting technologies, wireless communications, and screen-based dynamically composited animation.

Tell us about a recent project that bridges the digital and physical.

The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas is a good example. We designed its West Lobby all the way through from architecture to the platform for digital art, which displays 50 pieces of immersive original content.

64 — eg magazine

Joshua Walton and James Tichenor Architecturally, we had to deal with eight giant structural concrete columns, which potentially could have made it a very uninviting space. We decided to dematerialize the columns by cladding them in LCD screens and then overlaying the screens with a special bronzed glass that acts as a two-way mirror.

The effect is that the content gets mirrored in the space.

It took 384 LCD displays and 64 MacBook Pros to run the platform and in total, content had to be created for something like 46,000 by 4,000 pixels.

Can physical and digital environmental graphics co-exist beautifully?

The trick is to combine the two so that you take advantage of what they do best. Physical environments activate our senses in ways that digital experiences can never do.

The Cosmo only exists in one place in the world and you have to be there to experience it. But digital

experiences allow us accessibility, portability, and ease of duplication.

The Cosmo system has video sensors that can detect the level of activity in the space and manipulate the video content to reflect that.

The content can also be changed with the season, occasion, time of day, or theme. These are just a few of the ways that we can leverage both worlds.

Are you seeing a lot more demand for digital experiences in physical spaces?

Yes. We’re especially noticing that marketing people are interested in physical spaces and how they can be used for branding. At the JetBlue terminal at LaGuardia, we helped them create a digital platform that is integrated into the environment but provides meaningful content.

We’re seeing a lot more digital features emerging in this way, as contemporary versions of the traditional fountains or sculptures.

NO. 03, 2012

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NO. 03, 2012

ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS MAGAZINE

eg ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS MAGAZINE WWW.SEGD.ORG

BY THE NUMBERS A TASMANIAN SCULPTURE TRAIL

SALT LAKE RISING

LEE SKOLNICK

OUT OF AFRICA IJUSI MAGAZINE