Insight02/12/2012
Two Twelve Day 2012 marks our thirty-second anniversary as a design business. For the numerologically inclined among us, this milestone offers a uniquely entertaining chance to celebrate where we are today, the events that brought us to this point, and where we are headed for the next 32 years.
Our journey began in 1980 at 212 York Street in New Haven, the old Zeta Psi fraternity house where Yale's graduate program in Graphic Design was then housed. We began small, just three designers, three desks and a few tools. Sylvia Harris, Juanita Dugdale and I had big ideas and big dreams for a design business built around public information design.
In the 32 years since, we have grown and changed. In the mid-1990's, when Sylvia and Juanita left Two Twelve to pursue independent activities, our Yale friend Ann Harakawa joined the firm as a partner and brought new ideas and energy to the business. We are now a company of 30 people with a core of four design teams.
This year we also remember sadly and fondly our co-founder Sylvia who died so suddenly and unexpectedly last summer. She was such a bright light and an inspiration to all of us, and her spirit lives on in our service-oriented mission and our passion for design.
On the occasion of this 32nd anniversary, we have much to be thankful for: scores of remarkable projects completed, many design awards, and a huge network of wonderful working relationships. We have an amazing array of tools we can use to design, to communicate, and to innovate: wayfinding systems are far more than signs, and information graphics are way more than fixed images on a page. These days we integrate all the communication tools available to us to tell stories and help people navigate in ways we could not have imagined in 1980.
We hope that 2012 brings good things to us all and we look forward to collaborating with you this year. So let's continue the dialogue about design for people and places, at times it can be challenging, sometimes even surprising, but it's always interesting. We hope to hear from you - you will certainly hear more from us about our thirty-second anniversary celebration.
Warm greetings to you from your friends at Two Twelve.
