Deborah Evelyn Sussman, perhaps best known for having designed the looks of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and who partnered with her husband, Paul Prejza, to form the Sussman/Prejza & Co. design firm (Los Angeles), died from breast cancer on August 19 at her home in West Los Angeles at age 83. ST published an eight-page article about the LA Olympic signage (see ST, October 1984, page 72).
The Los Angeles Times reported, “One of the last projects in which she was involved was signage for Grand Park, which opened in downtown Los Angeles in 2012. It includes 16-foot-high entrance totems that say in 26 languages, ‘the park for all’." She was also known for designing the traffic systems at Disney World and Euro Disney (now Disneyland Paris).
Sussman was born in Brooklyn, NY, on May 26, 1931. She attended Bard College in upstate New York and the Institute of Design in Chicago. In 1953, she spent the summer as an intern with seminal Los Angeles designers Charles and Ray Eames, and subsequently spent a few years working with them.
Sussman married Prejza, an architect in 1972. Sussman had formed her own design firm in 1968, and Prejza joined forces with her after they married.
In ST’s October 2000 issue, Sussman wrote an article entitled “Design Overload?,” in which she discussed the wayfinding system she designed for the City of Santa Monica, and a system she designed for Pioneer Place, a mixed-use development in Portland, OR. In the article she contrasted the vertical nature of East Coast cities like New York with the horizontal nature of West Coast cities like Los Angeles.
Sussman was named a Fellow by the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) in 1991, and she won that organization’s Golden Arrow Award in 2006, when it was known as the Society for Environmental Graphic Design. SEGD says, "Recipients of the Golden Arrow have made large and long-term contributions to the strength of SEGD as leaders of their organizations, icons in the field, or supporters of SEGD’s goals.”
The SEGD website describes her as “the diminutive powerhouse of environmental graphic design.” The website also includes numerous tributes to Sussman written by SEGD members.