JANE DAVIS DOGGETT

Jane Davis Doggett is best known for designing wayfinding systems for 40 major airport projects, many of which are still in use today. Each year, roughly 20 million airplane passengers are guided by her way-finding signage and graphics. She was the first to use color, letter and symbol coding in airport signage, integrated signs on the highway approach to airports, and also the first to separate airline branding from signage. 

Doggett grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She first attended Newcomb College at Tulane University and later went to to earn her MFA from Yale University School of Art and Architecture in 1956. She was one of the first women to graduate from the program. At Yale, she studied architecture, color and graphic design under Louis Kahn, Josef Albers and Alvin Eisenman, who she claims to be her major influences. 

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Aside from her work in airports, she has also spearheaded other design projects and wayfinding programs for museums, convention centers, performing arts and public transportation systems. She has worked on projects for Madison Square Garden, the Philadelphia subway system, The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Niagara Falls International Convention Center. 

Doggett is also a fine artist who has developed the concept of the Iconochrome, which she describes as “geometric designs in colors expressing philosophically profound messages.” She has also described an Iconochrome as a colorful image or “Icon, an image with meaning, plus chrome, color.” Her work has been exhibited at the Yale University Art Gallery, The Tennessee State Museum, The Armory Art Center, The Tampa International Airport, The Lighthouse Art Center, The Maritime and Classic Boat Museum in Jensen Beach, FL, The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME, and Littlefield Gallery in Winter Harbor, ME.