Jazz at Lincoln Center is one of the foremost performance venues in New York City. Nicknamed The House of Swing, it serves as a home base for local and touring jazz musicians, and is a welcoming temporary home for award shows, film premieres, conferences, and other events. Located inside the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, it’s an easily accessible destination with sweeping views of Central Park and midtown Manhattan. In 2014–15, Ennead Architects redesigned the public spaces at Jazz at Lincoln Center, making hallways and atriums that serve magnificent venues destinations in themselves. With new curved wood slat walls in red oak, a striking ceiling, video walls, and new custom furnishings, the space needed signage, a donor recognition system, wayfinding, and few exhibit elements to match.The signs we developed have clean lines and minimalist nature. Engineered to be inset flush with the walls, they are internally illuminated and faced with polished metal plates reminiscent of brass musical instruments.

Completed at Pentagram New York in 2015. Creative director: Paula Scher. Other designer: Rory Simms. Project manager: Sarah McKeen. Help with CA and bid documentation: Susan May. Typeface: JellyRoll by Jeremy Mickel. Fabricator: American SignCrafters. Architect: Ennead Architects. Photography by Red de Leon