FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 1, 2009

2009 SEGD Design Awards: Activating Public Spaces with EGD

WASHINGTON, DC — Pedestrian-centered improvements to the Brooklyn Bridge, a light installation at a bus terminal in Hell’s Kitchen, and supergraphic portraits of Irish literati at the Dublin Airport were among the winners in SEGD’s 2009 Design Awards Program.

These and other winning projects show how even the most mundane of public spaces—bus terminals, decrepit harborfronts, airport concourses, and neglected parks—can be activated using environmental graphic design.

“By employing typography, symbols, color, light, and new media, we can design urban interventions that dramatically improve some ignored parts of the public environment,” says Peter Dixon, senior partner/creative director of the New York strategy, innovation, and design consultancy Prophet and chair of the 2009 SEGD Design Awards Program. “Environmental graphic design can have a very powerful impact in these spaces."

The 40 winning projects represent a diverse, international array of work at the confluence of graphic design, interior design, architecture, communications, landscape architecture, and new media. The annual awards program, established in 1987, is sponsored by SEGD (the Society for Environmental Graphic Design), an international nonprofit educational foundation providing resources for professionals working at the intersection of communication design and the built environment.

The record-breaking 430 entries in the 2009 program reflect how EGD has matured as a discipline and plays an increasingly important role in the design of human-centered public spaces. “Award-winning EGD has reached a new level and the bar is very high,” says Dixon. “We also noted the increasing convergence of digital media and environmental graphics, and how they each enrich the other.”

SEGD’s 2009 Design Awards Program was also its most international to date, with a record number of international entries and winning design teams from Reykjavik, Iceland, to Mexico City.

The design awards were juried by a multidisciplinary team representing architecture, environmental and experience design, exhibition design, and retail and healthcare environment planning and design. In addition to Dixon, the jurors included: Lars Uwe Bleher, managing director of Atelier Markgraph (Frankfurt) and faculty member in architectural design and digital design media at the University of Oregon; Sue Gould, principal of Lebowitz|Gould|Design (New York); Tim Love, principal of Utile and associate professor at Northeastern University School of Architecture (Boston); Linda Raker, senior project manager for national facilities development at Kaiser Permanente (San Francisco); Stephanie Reyer, director of exhibitions at the National Constitution Center (Philadelphia); and Kathy Wesselman, principal of wpa inc. (Seattle).

Seven Honor awards, 33 Merit awards, two Jury awards, and one award for Doing a Lot with a Little were recognized at a May 30 ceremony during SEGD’s 2009 Conference + Expo, held May 27-30 in San Diego.

For more detailed information on the award-winning projects, including photographs, project descriptions, and jury comments, visit www.segd.org.

Honor Awards

• Cathedral of Christ the Light Environmental Graphics (Oakland, Calif.), by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (San Francisco)

• Dublin Airport Pier D Environmental Graphics (Dublin, Ireland), by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (London/San Francisco)

• Go with God Façade (Lisbon, Portugal), by R2 Design (Porto, Portugal)

• GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall (Beijing), by Simone Giostra & Partners Architects (New York)

• Museum of Arts and Design Signage and Wayfinding (New York), by Pentagram (New York)

• Newseum Exhibits (Washington, DC), by Ralph Appelbaum Associates (New York) and Kubik (Mississauga, Ont.)

• Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Environmental Graphics and Donor Recognition (Syracuse, N.Y.), by Poulin + Morris (New York)

Merit Awards

• Abundant Australia, 11th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2008 Venice Biennale (Venice), by Frost* Design (Melbourne)

• Autodesk Customer Briefing Center (Lake Oswego, Ore.), by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (San Francisco) University of Alberta Wayfinding Master Plan (Edmonton, Alberta) by Gottschalk + Ash International (Toronto)

• B&T Pizza Graphics (St. Louis), by Kuhlmann Leavitt (St. Louis)

• Brooklyn Bridge Pedestrian Improvements (Brooklyn, N.Y.), by emphasis design (Brooklyn)

• Brown University Friedman Study Center Signage (Providence, R.I.), by Open (New York)

• Cristal Bar Graphics (Hong Kong), by Katrin Olina Ltd. (Reykjavik, Iceland)

• Dubai Mall Catwalk (Dubai, UAE), by Square Peg Design (Oakland, Calif.)

• Ecotopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video Exhibit (New York), by Matter Architecture Practice and MGMT. Design (New York)

• E.ON Visitor Center Graphics (Dattein, Germany), by Kubik BV (Amsterdam)

• Erie Basin Park Exhibits/Interpretive (Brooklyn, N.Y.), by Russell Design (New York)

• Erie Canal Harbor Project Environmental Graphics (Buffalo, N.Y.), by C&G Partners (New York)

• The Fighting 3rd Exhibit (student work/conceptual), by Stephanie Bohl, Drexel University (Philadelphia)

• Fortitude Valley Station Environmental Graphics (Brisbane, Australia), by The Buchan Group (Brisbane)

• 1961 Freedom Rides Exhibit (Montgomery, Ala.), by Ralph Appelbaum Associates (New York); special recognition for Doing a Lot with a Little

• Hall of Human Origins Exhibit (New York), by American Museum of Natural History (New York)

• Harrah’s Resort Media Façade (Atlantic City, N.J.), by Tim Hunter Design (New York)

• Hugo Boss Orange Concept Store Graphics (Mannheim, Germany), by Projekttriangle Design Studio (Stuttgart) • Invesco Headquarters Environmental Graphics (Atlanta), by Gensler (Washington, DC)

• Lance Armstrong Foundation Headquarters Signage and Graphics (Austin, Texas), by fd2s inc. (Austin)

• McVillage Environmental Graphics (Bodegraven, The Netherlands), by UXUS (Amsterdam)

• Montreal Science Centre Signage and Branding (Montreal), by Bélanger Branding Design (Montreal)

• Pikesville Animal Hospital Environmental Graphics (Pikesville, Md.), by Shaw Jelveh Design (Baltimore); special recognition for Doing a Lot with a Little

• Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Bus Terminal Triple Bridge Gateway (New York), by PANYNJ Engineering Department, PKSB Architects, and Leni Schwendinger Light Projects Ltd. (New York)

• St. Michael’s Grammar School Donor Recognition (Melbourne, Australia), by Nexus Designs and Fallon Image Design (Melbourne)

• The Sound of North: Wayfinding Solutions for the Visually Impaired (Bristol, England), by David Sweeney, Royal College of Art Helen Hamlyn Centre (London)

• Speaking of Home Public Art Installation (Minneapolis), by Coyne Photography + Design (Minneapolis)

• Tango with Cows: Book Art of the Russian Avant-garde Exhibit (Los Angeles), by J. Paul Getty Museum, Exhibition Design (Los Angeles)

• Unfinished Trajectories Exhibit (Porto, Portugal), by R2 Design (Porto)

• Wild Birds of the American Wetlands Exhibit (Salt Lake City), by Utah Museum of Natural History Exhibits Department

Jury Awards

• Chapultepec Park Rehabilitation Signage (Mexico City), by Grupo de Diseño Urbano/Diseño Neko (Mexico City)

• Mellon Town Residential Lobby (Shenzhen, China), by One Plus Partnership Ltd. (Hong Kong)

Lot with a Little Award

• St. Vincent de Paul Free Dining Room (San Rafael, Calif.), by Debra Nichols Design (San Francisco)

About SEGD
Founded in 1973, the Society for Environmental Graphic Design is the global community of people working at the intersection of communication design and the built environment. Through educational programs, research, and publications, SEGD’s mission is to increase awareness of the environmental graphic design community, promote the importance of the discipline in establishing place, and continue to refine standards of practice for the field.

SEGD
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Phone: 202 638-5555
E-Mail: ann@segd.org
Website URL: www.segd.org