Since before World War II, the Dayton, Ohio, region has been a source of high-quality professional aviation communication arts, including photography, print designs, and more.
The Dayton region has been known for its aviation legacy for over a century, starting with the Wright Brothers.
In 1917, the United States Army established its Aviation Engineering Headquarters at McCook Field, which was later moved to Wright Field in 1927.
The discoveries of flying higher, faster, and further in Dayton were duly recorded as aviation technology improved. That information needed to be distributed to the entire U.S. Army Air Corps and, in fact, to the global community of flyers, a group that generally shared its knowledge to allow for even more discoveries during that era.
Let me say here that, at times, engineers of all industries can speak a language that no one other than engineers can begin to decipher. I call it "engineerese."
Turning "engineerese" into understandable information fell to someone at the Army Engineering HQ in Dayton, and a wise decision was made to start employing graphic artists, copywriters, designers, illustrators, and photographers to make it all make sense. After all, any published item has a long thread of talented people who help create it.
Today, museums' archives are filled with manuals for pilots and aircrews, maintenance guides, training instructions, posters, and detailed diagrams from this era before World War II.
As aircraft became more complex, the generation of information grew in tandem. For example, a complete set of manuals to operate a B-24 Liberator filled the size of a small suitcase.
Something to consider: Over 18,000 B-24s were built, and over 12,000 B-17s were built. All of them were sent out with a complete set of manuals. That is a whole lot of design and printing, and a lot of it happened in Ohio.
As war efforts and preparations increased well before Pearl Harbor and the USA's entry into World War II, the War Department expanded. In addition to combat troops, pilots, mechanics, and gunners, it hired artists.
There are recounts of large military buildings at Wright Field filled with drawing boards and populated by very creative and dedicated interpreters of "engineerese." They designed understandable procedures for things like engine maintenance, how to operate a radar set, how to repair a machine gun, how to shoot down an attacking fighter, navigate a bomber, how to parachute from a damaged airplane, how to survive in a jungle or if you fell into the water, and even how to arm an atomic bomb.
The overriding direction was to make it all immediately understandable in a graphic and readable style.
Post WW-II
After the war, the Army didn’t need all those people, and Dayton suddenly had many unemployed artists. In response, many advertising art studios and agencies opened. Existing industries and those that sprang up to support the war efforts returned to building cars, appliances, houses, and everything else the post-war economy would buy. All of that required graphic information in the form of advertising and information on how to operate the new “stuff.”
My Dad returned to Dayton after getting out of the Army in 1946. He found a job at a local advertising agency and then, later, a studio founded by artists from Wright Field. Dayton became a national center of graphic arts and professional communicators.
Dad always told me what he had learned from those guys: If what you’ve come up with is not instantly legible and understandable, go back to work and improve it.
Wishing you blue skies and tailwinds,
Blue Skies and Tailwinds is supported by Wright State University Aviation Science and Technology program. The series is produced at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.
