John Follis; Headed Graphic Design Firm

John V. Follis, graphic designer whose signs and symbols included the logos for the Los Angeles Bicentennial and Disney World, has died. He was 71.

Follis, who had his own design firm for more than 30 years, died Dec. 4 in Pasadena, his family announced last week.

The Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects had planned to present Follis with an honorary membership at a luncheon Thursday. The honor was bestowed posthumously.

Among the clients for which Follis designed signage and other material are the San Diego Wild Animal Park, Atlantic Richfield Plaza and Security Pacific world headquarters in Los Angeles, Sea World in Florida, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.

His artistic ability first earned attention when he won a contest to design a high school class pin. One impressed classmate was the woman who became his wife, the potter and stitchery artist June Follis.

Follis worked as a laborer at the Wilmington shipyards and became an instructor of physical education in the Navy before turning to design as a vocation. He studied at the Art Center College of Design and CalArts. When he was 32, he became an interior designer at the architectural firm of Welton Becket & Associates.

In 1960 he set up his own firm with “no clients--just a tremendous desire to take pencil and paper and express myself in graphics and design.”

Specializing in logotypes, trademarks and signs that identify and provide direction in large architectural complexes, his company evolved from John Follis & Associates to Usher-Follis Inc. to the current John Follis Design of Los Angeles.

Over the years, Follis taught at UCLA, Cal State L.A. and the Art Center College of Design, and served as art director for Arts & Architecture magazine and the American Crayon Publication.

Examples of his work are displayed in the Smithsonian Institution’s graphic arts hall in Washington. Follis has also had exhibits at the Pasadena Art Museum, the La Jolla Museum of Art, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art. Solo retrospective exhibits were staged at Cal State L.A. in 1974 and Pasadena City College in 1981.

In addition to his wife, Follis is survived by three sons, Roger, Grant and Dean, a daughter, Charlene, a brother, Charles, and four grandchildren.