Leslie Gallery-Dilworth is director of SEGD (Society for Environmental Graphic Design), and editor of segdDESIGN magazine. SEGD, an international membership organization, provides education resources, for designers working on complex wayfinding and sign programs, exhibit and museum design, branding and experience design.
An architect, landscape architect and urban planner, she was elected to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows, and serves on the board of the American Architectural Foundation. She has been the recipient of 3 design fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and was selected as the USA Fellow by the NEA.
Prior to SEGD, she founded Philadelphia’s Foundation for Architecture, a civic platform for urban planning. She has produced lectures, tours, design competitions, and guidebooks, as well as Philadelphia's award winning direction and attraction sign project. She has been consulted internationally on making cities more easily understood, and accessible.
Access and the Urban Experience
The Urban Place as an Information Environment
Getting there, being there, leaving there: Each step in this journey contributes to our experience of place. Urban spaces are rich and complex information environments. Making them truly accessible and understandable requires not only physical components (transportation and infrastructure, views and vistas, public gathering places, sights and sounds and smells), but also an intricate hierarchy of communication elements (maps, symbols, signs, guidebooks, websites, GPS, wayfinding, and destination branding, to name just a few) that simplify and demystify complex geographies. Skillfully and thoughtfully combined, these physical and informational elements can make the urban environment truly accessible and welcoming to all. Examples of recent work by prominent designers and architects from around the world will illustrate how urban environments are enriched by graphic communication.
