Recently (Dec 12 2002) passed through JFK and noticed the new airport signage produced by Paul Mijksenaar. His style often immitated at airports around the world.
I first noticed his design at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport in '97. Soon after I picked up a copy of his Visual Function: An Introduction to Information Design a great introduction to information design and a good complement to a set of Tufte books. Clear and understandable, his signage provides travellers with easy path and way-finding.
"New York airports were among the most confusing in the world," said Paul Mijksenaar, the 57-year-old Dutch designer, who has been brought in by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to redo the obtuse airport signs. "There was no system. They resembled — how do you say it? — the apocalypse."
As an information designer, Mr. Mijksenaar's specialty is taming chaos. Over the last two years, he has begun to turn the perplexing welter of signs at Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark into an orderly series of transitions that will ultimately replace more than 5,000 dated and confusing ones, easing the way for some 90 million travelers each year.
His Amsterdam-based firm, Bureau Mijksenaar (pronounced MIKE-sen-ar), is responsible for the signs at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, which is consistently rated by travelers as the most well-organized airport in the world.(From NY Times article)
Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/07/living/07AIR.html
http://www.mijksenaar.com/index2.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/...