I did a large format brochure for HKS one time, and soon Ron Brame, FAIA called me and said they got an airport job in Italy and the brochure had had a big impact on the client. Interestingly, years later I had about a 30-minute, face-to-face presentation of my work with Steve Jobs and the main thing he truly reacted to was the “W” on the Weir Brothers brochure.ĭo you have favorite stories from working with your AEC clients? We used their helicopter and shot the image for a brochure cover and the image took hold. It was deep enough to stand in and get lost. The logo itself stretched 60 feet or more and the depth of the trenches that made the “W” were six or seven feet deep. I gave them the Futura “W” and the excavation dimensions. Then I thought about the type of work they do and said, “Why don’t we excavate a ‘W’ in the ground and shoot the image from above?” Weir Brothers was working on a golf course project at the time, which proved an ideal location. I was thinking about a simple Futura “W” for their logo. I told them straight up, “We’re not going to use that.” They were working on high-end projects like construction at the Dallas Museum of Art and the Meyerson Symphony Center. They had a logo that was a cartoon of a bulldozer. Weir Brothers, an excavation company, was an interesting client. I did a few smaller programs, like an identity and brochure for architecture and interior design firm Rogers-Ford and a fun and unique logo for Jeff Smith, an architectural stained-glass creator. HCB Beck, Greiner, Bateson, Omniplan-those were some of the other larger ones. I was careful about that with every AEC client. My work for them never overlapped though. HKS was my first architectural client, Corgan my second. Some were very small, some international.
I’ve worked for probably 12 to 20 AEC firms, depending on how you define a firm. In your career, how many architecture, engineering, and construction firms have you served? He talks about them in the following interview. Through his years in working in the AEC industry, he’s run into a few egos. His unassuming, yet articulate style of interacting gives you the sense that he knows what he’s talking about and is confident in who he is and what he knows.
Still, he carries himself with a soft charm that dispels any ego and is quick to give credit to others. Jack is a celebrity of sorts in the graphic design world perhaps legend is a more accurate term. “I tried to stay true to his work and his sketchbook and journals,” Summerford says. Summerford and Unruh collaborated on the book prior to Unruh’s recent passing. Though retired, he continues to make a few forays back into creative design, such as his recent book, Obvious? and a book of outdoor illustrations created by the revered Texas illustrator Jack Unruh. He is locally known for his creative branding and logo solutions for building industry companies-some in existence, some reborn through acquisition, and some that have devolved into a footnote in history.Īfter 50-plus years in the design world, he now divides his time between grandchildren living in Fort Worth and New York, and enjoys occasional trips to Santa Fe, NM. Jack Summerford is a graphic designer and writer who has garnered more awards than he thinks he deserves … for more years than he expected.