Graphic Design: USA Awards

Smith & Dress was selected a winner of two awards in the 2003 American Graphic Design Awards competition by a nationwide panel of judges. The work ­ a branding campaign developed for Olympus University and the communication and design of an educational brochure for Olympus America Inc. ­ will be published in a special Awards Edition and in Graphic Design: USA's 250-page annual in early 2004 that recognizes the work of major designers nationally.

Best on Long Island Award

Once again, Smith & Dress was recognized with a 2003 BOLI award. The annual BOLI, sponsored by the Long Island Advertising Club cited a direct mail piece that S&D created for Olympus America Inc. This multiple-page catalog won for the single piece, self-mailer catetgory.

Lab-on-a-Chip Story Appears in Advance for the Laboratory Magazine

When Abby Dress heard about a new testing technology that could revolutionize medicine, she went to the source. She interviewed John T. McDivitt, Ph.D., at the University of Texas in Austin to write up his work on an electronic tongue sensing system that may be comnmercially viable long before experts thought possible. This could mean that an individua's own physician could test a patient right in the office for multiple tests at one time using a disposal adhesive strip and perhaps diagnose a person's predisposition to heart disease.

Grants from the National Institutes of Health pumped more dollars into McDivitt's program because use of this technology has possibilities with sensing gases and security applications.

Read more about this technology in the November 2002 issue of Advance for the Laboratory magazine.

Women Pilots Documentary Selected for Film Festival

Abby Dress (Smith & Dress) and Mary Scott (Make*Believe TV) have co-produced Wings of Their Own, a documentary about women pilots with a focus on the Ninety-Nines ­ the organization founded in 1929 by legendary Amelia Earhart to support and advance the role of women pilots.

The documentary recently was selected for the 2005 New York International Film and Video Selection. It also was previewed at a celebration of flight with the Long Island Ninety-Nines on December 13, 2003, at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, N.Y. to coincide with the anniversary of the Centennial of Flight and premiered there November 29, 2004.

Dress and Scott traveled to Alabama, New York, North Carolina, California, Connecticut, and Texas, Washington, D.C., as well as Long Island locations, to interview women pilots for the 90-minute work. There are hours of tape from the 225 pilots interviewed ­ some of these were original charter members of the Ninety-Nines, who even attended the group's first meeting at Curtiss Field in Valley Stream, N.Y., in 1929.

Many of the women were record holders of endurance races or altitudes, while others were pioneers. Elinor Smith, for instance, and Bobbi Trout, were the first females to re-fuel an airplane in mid-air. Bonnie Tiburzi was the first woman pilot hired in 1973 by a major commercial airline company to fly a jet. Gene Nora Jessen, one of the Mercury 13 who had quit her job to become an astronaut, learned that the U.S. Space Program decided against sending women into space in 1961, even though she and 12 others had passed the astronaut testing procedures.

This project documents the feats and achievements of women pilots from their early daredevil days to their current successes throughout the twentieth century in commercial and military service as well as in space.