Superman Plaza Sign

PRINT DESIGN

I had the honor of designing the sign for the Siegel & Shuster Society’s Superman Tribute Plaza. The first image shown is the map design. I also created the map diagrams and location icons. The map diagrams are intentionally illustrative and not to scale. Only streets of interest are shown as each map had to fit a specific area on the map, but one could easily find their way, especially using map apps on a smart phone.

The location icons are simplified to fit the map and not take up too much space; their only purpose is to garner some interest rather than having only call-out numbers. The Terminal Tower perspective was altered so only about two-thirds of the tower could be shown and none of the building further down. The Ohio Historical notation is not what is actually used; it is a similar version, smaller to fit the map, and meant only to symbolize that there is an official historical map at that location. The street signs are simplified, as a street was named for Jerry Siegel and for Joe Shuster, with a connecting street named Lois Lane. Lastly, while there are accounts of Joe Shuster using a dip pen for drawing, I chose to show a ruling pen for the college icon. Even at that time, it would make more sense for drawing students to be required to use professional tools, like a ruling pen, for drawing classes. I found no proof of this, so chalk it up to artistic license.

The background of the map is all vector art. While the three distinct areas (Public Square, Glenville, University Circle) are shown separately, I still wanted to show our beautiful Lake Erie coastline, and with that, the sense of Superman & Lois up in the air, flying. At this point, the coastline curves sharply upward and eastward, but I only slightly indicated that. I used browns for land, with a touch of green as a nod to the Emerald Necklace, a string of parks skirting the Greater Cleveland area. The green gets a little lost on the greatly reduced images shown here (reduced from 3ft X 2ft). I used a deep blue for the lake because on a sunny day, it is a gorgeous deep blue. The sky is azure with some soft clouds, but all of this lies softly in the background.

The flying Superman & Lois illustration was created by Gary and Laura Dumm of DummArt.com, as were the head and shoulder portraits of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. In my opinion, their artwork contribution made this map.

One of the requirements for the project was that it had to be all vector art. The Superman & Lois art was originally part of an anniversary poster from 2018, so for the map, the figures had to be cut out and auto-traced with tight photographic settings to prevent color banding. When such strict settings are used, a fringe is created around the edges because the Adobe Illustrator software is trying to create an anti-aliased edge, which then has to be eliminated because it creates a halo all around the artwork. After meticulous edge cleanup, a perfect pen path was needed to provide a solid clean edge like the original art. It’s tricky converting raster art (pixel-based art) to vector art with professional quality results, but it can be done.

The third image is the unveiled Superman statue, while the last photo is me next to the sign. This particular sign was temporarily installed for the unveiling, but an identical metal sign with a heavy resin coating will soon replace it. (So a new pic will eventually replace this one.)

In the summer of 2024, we saw parts of downtown Cleveland transformed into Metropolis for the new Superman movie that came out in July of 2025. Shortly after, on August 2, Superman finally came home to Cleveland. The new Siegel & Shuster Superman Plaza was finally complete.

Why home? Superman was created here in Cleveland by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1933. Statues unveiled included a flying Superman atop an 18 foot pedestal, a grouping of Jerry Siegel, Joanne Siegel (the model for Lois Lane), and Joe Shuster, and the iconic phone booth, all created by the renowned sculptor David Deming.