Graphic Design + Architecture by Richard Poulin

June 2013

Poulin + Morris Honored with Multiple SEGD Global Design Awards

Poulin + Morris is pleased to announce that the firm received 2 SEGD Global Design Awards at this year’s SEGD Conference held in San Francisco. Poulin + Morris was the only firm to receive multiple honors.

Richard Poulin’s latest book, Graphic Design + Architecture: A 20th-Century History, received one of 2 awards for the firm. Released by Rockport Publishers in November 2012, Graphic Design + Architecture is the first book of its kind to explore the history and unique relationship between these 2 disciplines. As one award juror noted, “This book is an important milestone for the EGD (environmental graphic design) field: the first look at the historical relationship between graphic design and architecture, focusing primarily on the 20th century.”

With narrative and visual examples dating back to ancient times (cave paintings in Lascaux; Egyptian hieroglyphics) up to the modern era (Russian constructivist wall murals during the Bolshevik Revolution; the great white ways of Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, and the Las Vegas Strip), Graphic Design + Architecture reveals the continuous dialogue that has existed between graphic design and the built environment throughout history. “It takes on a gargantuan task to chronologically survey the application of messages and graphics in the environment and is an invaluable reference tool for students, professionals, and researchers alike.”

The book’s author, Richard Poulin, and designer, Andreina Carrillo, were both on hand to accept the award at a special ceremony on 08 June during the 2013 SEGD Conference in San Francisco.


Natural History Museum of Utah

The firm’s work for the Natural History Museum of Utah also received an SEGD Global Design Award. Poulin + Morris developed a comprehensive environmental graphics, donor recognition, and wayfinding sign program for the Museum's exterior and interior spaces including identification signs for all galleries, public spaces, café, museum shop, administrative offices, and meeting rooms, as well as directional/wayfinding, donor recognition, and code-required sign elements. Honoring the site's natural surroundings along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, as well as the building architecture's unique angular forms, the signs are fabricated in a wide range of regional materials used throughout the building, such as corten steel, copper, and aluminum.

As a member of the SEGD Global Design Awards jury commented on the work of the project team: “The manner in which [museum] elements, material selection, and colors reference the natural Utah environment and guide the visitor to search and discover are particularly engaging. The information is organized and presented in a very clean and understated manner that doesn’t detract from the primary exhibit elements but enhances the experience.”

Established in 1987 by the Society for Environmental Graphic Design, the annual SEGD Global Design Awards recognize excellence in visual communications for the built environment. They are the only international design awards that focus on environmental graphic design. The program demonstrates how the increasingly cross-disciplinary craft can inform, engage, enrich, and transform the built environment. With hundreds of entries submitted from around the world in categories including Dynamic Environments, Office/Workplace Environments, Leisure/ Entertainment Environments, Educational/Institutional Environments, Residential Environments, Urban Projects, Exhibitions, and more, 22 winners were selected by a diverse, multidisciplinary jury composed of leaders in the fields of design and architecture.

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