CASE STUDYInner-City Arts

Visualizing a Beacon for the Arts

DESIGN: PH.D, A DESIGN OFFICE SANTA MONICA

WHEN INNER-CITY ARTS WAS FOUNDED IN 1989, it served a few hundred high-poverty children in temporary buildings on an elementary school campus in downtown Los Angeles. Four years later, the organization hired architect Michael Maltzan to renovate a former automotive paint shop on Skid Row for the school’s permanent home. Maltzan brought in Michael Hodgson, principal and cofounder of Ph.D, to create signage for the building. The challenge was to come up with a design for the main building’s identity that could be fabricated and installed for very little money.

The sign that Ph.D created for Inner-City Arts borrowed from Los Angeles’ rich history ...

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