A Unified Graphic Communications System for the Department of Justice

Sometimes things go nowhere. Like, in 1976, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill prepared this technical proposal for a unified graphic communications system for the Department of Justice. It didn’t fly. It is, largely, a verbal response to a visual problem. But the staff at SOM typed it all out in detail—by which we mean they used a typewriter to prepare this proposal. What is interesting is that they clearly had templated sheets to prepare these sorts of proposals in-house. The document leaves no record of what they had in mind for this, but it would be a good assignment for students to reverse-engineer a unified graphic communications system for the Department of Justice based on what’s written here. A rare thing about which the entire internet says absolutely nothing.