[Martin Pal]

I just learned about this today. There's an exhibition showcasing Janet Sussman, one of the designers of the designs/look for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Now Sussman, still working at age 82 at Sussman/Prejza, the firm she founded in 1980 with her husband, Paul Prejza, is getting a solo spotlight in "Deborah Sussman Loves Los Angeles," an exhibition running through Jan. 19 at Woodbury University's WUHO Gallery in Hollywood.

[The exhibition] concludes with the Olympics, a triumph not only for the bottom line but also for its interest in celebrating rather than trying to disguise the ephemeral, even beautifully fragile quality of the built environment in Los Angeles.

With their ad hoc, efficient and brightly colored flair, the cardboard pylons, scaffolding, signage and temporary structures that Sussman/Prejza and Jerde created for the 1984 Summer Games were arguably the ultimate triumph of the core Eamesian philosophy, even as they also marked the shift from modern design to postmodernism. They created an entire world from a shotgun marriage of ingenuity and joie de vivre.
Sussman's Olympic work also brought a new and bold kind of graphic design, now known as "supergraphics," to the attention of a worldwide audience. Because the budget for the 1984 Games was tight, Sussman/Prejza and Jerde relied on a hybrid of architecture and graphic design, using temporary structures that were bigger and more substantial than mere signs but also lighter and cheaper than actual buildings.



http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...#ixzz2peizQP8P