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If you've
strolled through the Central Park Zoo in New York,
participated in the 2000 U.S. census or selected an iconic stamp at
the post office, then you've benefited from the work of design
strategist Sylvia Harris. Throughout her vibrant 25-year career she
has partnered with high-profile clients—in business, nonprofit and
government—to yield rewarding projects and a life's work dedicated
to removing barriers by ensuring that public information systems
are accessible to everyone.
After
graduating with a BFA in communication arts and design
from Virginia Commonwealth University, in her hometown of Richmond,
Harris set off for Boston. The move was initially motivated by
romance, but her experiences there ultimately sparked her passion
for design. Despite an undergraduate focus on film and photography,
Harris was hired as a designer at WGBH, Boston's public television
station. "I learned how to make visual things," says Harris of
parlaying one skill set into another, "and if you know how to make
things, you can make one thing or the next thing." Harris, who has
an easy-going, approachable manner, is humble about the
considerable talent and drive that enabled her to adapt so readily
to her new profession.
On
her first big break:
My firm got a series of contracts with Citibank to work on the
design of the first ATM. I learned everything I know about user
testing, product design and strategic planning from that
experience. It was like going to graduate school in usability and I
made contacts that have lasted to this day.
She had some basic design skills, but it was
her WGBH boss,
designer Chris Pullman, whom Harris credits with not only giving
her a chance but for also recognizing her potential. "He showed
interest in my career, in me, and he gave me advice." The
admiration was mutual, she recalls. "I liked what he was doing…
working not for the private sector but in this other whole world of
design for the public good. It made a big impression." Pullman, who
was in his early thirties, stood out in a professional landscape
populated by older men. Harris notes, "There were few women, no
people of color, few people close to me in age—there was not much
to choose from for a mentor in the late 1970s." Pullman's early
influence helped inform her career path, and later her choice of
graduate school, Yale.
However, before
pursuing a second degree, she received
invaluable on-the-job design training at The Architects
Collaborative (TAC), headed by Walter Gropius, and the prestigious
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), then in Boston. TAC was where
Harris got her first exposure to environmental graphics, which
secured her future course. At SOM Harris first got involved in
environmental urban planning for public clients such as the
Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority and the U.S. Department of
Transportation. She also encountered another important mentor of a
different stripe in Karen Alschuler, who impressed Harris with her
ability to balance a challenging career as one of SOM's first
female partners and a family in such a male-dominated field. That a
woman could do it all was still very radical in 1976, and Harris
gravitated to Alschuler for guidance and friendship. In developing
a connection with a mentor Harris advises, "There is work that
needs to be done by the mentee to maintain the relationship, to
stoke it and get more out of it. When people put energy into your
career, you need to stay in touch with them to let them know how
things are turning out."
One
lesson from design:
Design teaches us not to make assumptions.
Influential mentors and experiences aside,
the always-striving
Harris decided to leave SOM because, as she puts it, "I didn't know
enough." Her curiosity and a recommendation from Pullman led her to
pursue an MFA in graphic design at Yale. Harris hungrily explored
the Liberal Arts education she missed in her undergraduate studies,
and was very tempted to jump the design ship and join great minds
like bell hooks and Henry Louis Gates in the school's history
department at the time. However, she stayed the design course, and
in 1980 along with two partners formed Two Twelve Associates, her
first graphic design consulting firm.
At
Two Twelve Harris worked on dynamic projects for the New York
State Council on the Arts, Pfizer, Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey and the Central Park Zoo, which was the first project
where Harris witnessed the significant impact her design could
make. "The Central Park Zoo was a real turning point," she recalls.
"The goal was to create this beautiful place where the public could
go for almost nothing—admission was 50 cents. They were making the
animals' habitats more humane and thinking about the interface with
the public. We re-did all the displays, information, signs and
interpretive panels… we were allowed to employ the best design
practices we knew, and the public loved it." Most significantly,
she notes, "It's something I did that's still there—it's
amazing."
What's
next for her:
I am interested in using design thinking to help the federal
government create and deploy better public services.
Harris has also brought her knowledge and
experience to the
classroom, teaching emerging design students at Purchase College
State University of New York, and in the graduate graphic design
program at Yale. Harris has served as a guest lecturer at various
museums and universities as well. While at Yale, she introduced the
first graduate-level information design class, in which her
students conceived and launched the ambitious redesign of the U.S.
Census 2000 that she took to Washington, D.C. The census project
was satisfying in that it addressed the compelling questions: Does
the design help the public accomplish its tasks? What technology
are we going to use to make that happen? And how do we have to
restructure the organization as a result? The project contained all
the elements that Harris loves about information design—a field
that she was drawn to because she wanted to be involved with
something that could make a difference in people's lives. Pursuing
this service-oriented, out-of-the-spotlight field of design
actually distinguishes Harris from her peers.
Remaining engaged and inspired is vital to
Harris—which is why
when she's not busy designing, teaching or consulting she likes to
travel extensively. A true adventurer, she gets away whenever
possible and encourages others to explore, too. "Take a lot of
pictures. Get out of the country, because you learn there are many
ways to look at the world," she advises. Travel is one of the most
important ways that she fuels her seemingly inexhaustible creative
spirit.
Currently, Harris advises
institutional clients on the design of
public information systems through her firm, Sylvia Harris, LLC,
which she founded in 1994 and runs from a leafy, third-floor office
in her Brooklyn home. She is also an active participant in public
design initiatives such as AIGA Design for Democracy, the Design
Trust for Public Spaces and the U.S. Postal Service's Citizens'
Stamp Advisory Committee. As for her next ambitious undertaking,
Harris will be working with a coalition of designers to reengineer
communications at Medicare. It's yet another endeavor along her
full path that remains true to her calling—to create accessible,
informative design for all.
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