AW HO AR NO D R
High Line Signage Friends of the High Line, New York Pentagram Design
Budget $118,000 (Phase 1), $137,000 (Phase 2), $84,000 (Founders Wall) Project Area 2.33 km/7,644 ft. Open Date June 2009 (Phase 1), June 2011 (Phase 2) Design Team Paula Scher art director and designer, Andrew Freeman senior designer, Rion Byrd Gumus designer
Fabrication Denise J. Mayer Architectural Graphics resin installations, Design Communications Ltd. primary fabricator, Winsor Fireform porcelain enamel Consultants James Corner Field Operations landscape architecture, Diller Scofidio + Renfro architects, L’Observatoire International lighting, Buro Happold structural/MEP engineering Photos Peter Mauss/Esto
LAYING TRACKS
More than a decade after designing the High Line’s visual identity, Paula Scher conceives a seamless and appropriate solution for signage.
2000, when Pentagram Partner Paula Scher was first approached to design a logo for IN Friends of the High Line, she never thought the
park’s organizers could accomplish their dream of transforming 1.5 miles of abandoned railroad tracks into an urban oasis. It took 11 years for the project to come to fruition, but the elevated park that once seemed an improbability has become one of New York’s top tourist destinations, stimulating billions of dollars in development nearby. “It’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my work life,” Scher says. Scher’s design for the park’s signage system extended her initial instincts to respect both its industrial/railroad aesthetic and its present-day urban setting. “I wanted something that would look both contemporary and appropriate on the site,” she explains. Steel seemed an obvious choice, since signage would primarily be integrated into the existing railroad structure. And she selected Rockwell—a slab-serif common in the industrial railroad era—as the project typeface. The system includes 24 street-level porcelain enamel signs wrapped around the steel I-beams supporting the elevated tracks. These signs introduce the High Line and direct visitors up
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