Jane Davis Doggett (NC ’52)

by Rebecca O’Malley Gipson (PA ’21)

Jane Davis Doggett was a pioneer in environmental graphic design, also known as wayfinding. Her graphics helped people find their way through busy public spaces.

Doggett received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1952 with a special commendation from Newcomb College. In 1956, she received a Master of Fine Arts degree with top honors from the Yale School of Art and Architecture, where she pioneered the field of architectural and environmental graphics design.

She has had a lifetime career creating thematic graphic identity and way-finding systems for mass public projects, including 40 international airport projects, more than any other designer worldwide. Examples of her work at airports include Tampa, Baltimore-Washington, Miami, Cleveland-Hopkins, and George Bush-Houston. She also consulted on the expansion of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Doggett’s designs have earned distinguished honors such as the American Institute of Architects' National Award of Merit, Progressive Architecture Design Award, American Iron and Steel Institute's Design in Steel Citation, and two Transportation Design Awards co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

She served multiple elected terms as the Jupiter Island, Florida, town commissioner. She was a founding board member of the Arts Council of Martin County and co-founder of the Jupiter Island Arts Committee.

In 2007, she released Talking Graphics: A Book of IconoChrome Images, an art and literary book in which she expresses philosophically profound messages in color and geometric designs, which include a selection of Roman proverbs and passages from the Bible. The same year, she received the Outstanding Alumna Award from the Newcomb Alumnae Association.

Her three-dimensional artworks have been exhibited in museums and venues nationwide, from the Yale University Art Gallery and Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, to the Tampa International Airport.

Doggett passed away in April 2023. She was an innovator in a male-dominated industry, and her philosophies and techniques in way-finding graphics have become the best practices for generations of designers and those yet to come.