January 2012 Member News
ALCHEMY STUDIO (Maplewood, N.J.) has been established by Wayne LaBar, former vice president of exhibitions and featured experiences at Liberty Science Center and principal of its LSC Experience Services.
The independent development, design, and consulting studio will work with science centers, museums, government agencies, NGOs, filmmakers, and others involved in the public engagement of science, history, technology, and the humanities.
“Alchemy builds off of the great completed through LSC Experience Services, and we look to practice, exercise, and stretch the talents and abilities generated through years of creative and collaborative teamwork,” says LaBar.
CHRISTIE MICROTILES (Cypress, Calif.) provided the display technology for Northern Kentucky University’s new College of Informatics.
Located in the Digitorium of Griffin Hall, the university’s first LEED-certified building, the Christie elements include a 19-ft.-wide by 15-ft.-high array of Christie MicroTiles (25 ft. wide by 15 ft. high), displaying images, videos, and graphics. The 120-seat Digitorium hosts virtual performances, simulations, collaborative gaming, workflow modeling, and 3D visualization, all fed to the Christie MicroTiles by four Christie projectors and two Christie Spyder X20-1608 image processors managing and controlling the content.
The MicroTiles receive several feeds including streaming video, HDMI out of a laptop, display footage out of a laptop, AV, cable TV feed, PC graphics, static images, and broadcast STI feeds.
DISEÑO SHAKESPEAR (Buenos Aires) is featured in Typographic Design: Form and Communication (Fifth Edition, Wiley & Sons 2012), by Rob Carter, Ben Day, and Philip Meggs. The book, considered a premier reference on typographic design, includes a section on Shakespear’s design of the identity and wayfinding for the Buenos Aires subway system. (The project was also featured in segdDESIGN magazine No. 20, 2008.)
FROST DESIGN (Sydney) recently completed an environmental graphics program for the Brisbane regional office of the Rio Tinto mining company. In support of an “Earth and Sky” interior concept by Geyer, the interior designers on the project, Frost created elements such as stencil-cut fonts, raw materials, and super-scaled photography. Contoured paneling creates a sense of topography in the lift core, while lithological patterns (geological map codes for rocks) bring otherwise functional surfaces to life.
Frost also recently completed an extensive environmental graphics program for the Darling Walk (Sydney) campus of Commonwealth Bank. A dynamic digital wall makes an impressive statement about the bank’s commitment to the environment, greeting visitors and staff with real-time statistics on the green performance of the campus. A 17.5-meter curved lenticular wall is perhaps the largest in existence. Signage and graphics over 55,000 sq. meters help to establish a distinctive sense of place and identity for different workplace settings.
GALLAGHER & ASSOCIATES (Silver Spring, Md.) has launched a new website at www.gallagherdesign.com. The new site includes an enhanced portfolio, a section focused on the firm’s process, and a “Happenings” section featuring current projects and recent awards.
MIJKSENAAR (Amsterdam) introduced a new iPhone wayfinding app called “99 do’s & don’ts of wayfinding.” It was made available in December 2011 at the App Store. Available in English and Dutch for $3.99, it offers a basic understanding of wayfinding and provides rules-of-thumb meant to engage professionals, designers, and novices in discussion about wayfinding.
It is organized into five categories--architecture, layout, location, message, and systematics—and offers an integral search option, shuffle, and glossary. Images are from the Mijksenaar archive.
The app was made possible with financial support from The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. It can be downloaded at http://itun.es/iLm3dh
PENTAGRAM (New York) completed the identity and environmental graphics as part of the $3.5 million renovation of the National Academy Museum and School in New York. Graphics created by Pentagram partner Abbott Miller and his team include a striking typographic installation of members’ names on the ceiling of the museum’s foyer.
DJ Stout in Pentagram’s Austin office developed a new identity system for the University of Southern California. The program gives USC a consistent but flexible identity for its many academic units and updates the logo created by legendary designer Saul Bass in the 1990s.
STUDIO SC (Seattle) recently installed and tested prototype signage at Seattle Children’s Hospital for its Building Hope expansion and campus master plan. The signs, fabricated by Image Mill, were tested for legibility, color, consistency, size, cap height, and clarity. Placing these prototypes in a low-traffic area of the hospital allowed the design team and owner to see how the signs looked at full size in the environment, and also gave patient-families an opportunity to experience the new wayfinding program and offer feedback. The new signage program will be installed at the end of 2012.