Sign Of The Times

Throughout Lance Wyman’s 60-year career, all his iconic work has adhered to the ethos: “Good design is like good poetry — you can’t change it one way or the other…”

- Beren Neale

LANCE WYMAN is the owner and creative director of Sideshow Sign Co., a Nashville-based team of designers and fabricators who specialize in custom sign manufacture. Wyman is also the creator of the Church of Sign Trilogy, a comprehensive online guide to sign making. www.lancewyman.com

Lance Wyman’s love affair with Mexico is well documented. The New Yorker first went there to work on Mexico City’s Metro wayfinding – the information systems that guide the countless people bustling through what is today the second largest metro system in North America.

Wyman’s designs were a success with commuters and municipal administrators alike, and his relationship with the city led to him designing the Mexican 1968 Olympics identity. It’s also seen him return this year to work on the visuals of all the city’s transportation systems. We caught up with the design legend during this year’s OFFSET Dublin and spoke about meditation, memory and the soul of Mexico City.

How much did the soul of Mexico City influence you as a person when you worked on the Olympics, and then the Metro, in 1968?

It affected me enormously because those guys, those early Mexican cultures, had great designers, artists… whatever you want to call them. They were creating images of plant life, human forms, mythological characters, mythological symbols with emotion and personality. They were so good at communicating through geometry. I studied it all and I think that’s one of the reasons why my work fits so well there.