Sylvia Harris Singer dies at 57

When word went out that Sylvia Elizabeth Harris Singer had been taken to a hospital in Washington, and that it was serious, her family and closest friends came at once.

Barely a day later, they had convened there, 25 in all, five of them children. One had flown in from Brazil, another from Portland, Maine. Some were down from New York, where Mrs. Singer lived and where her company, Citizen Research & Design, is based.

Ellen Goldsmith had come from Oregon.

"We gathered just to be there for Syl and her family," Goldsmith said. "Each one of us had to come. We're 'The Village.' So much love ... not just feeling but real nuts and bolts, raising each other's kids, holding each other up."

And so it was for Mrs. Singer. She had collapsed Thursday morning while on a business trip and been pronounced dead in a Washington hospital Sunday morning. "Sudden cardiac death," the certificate read.

The clinical term fell far short of describing the impact of the news for those who had raced to Washington, or for untold others who knew Mrs. Singer, a 57-year-old Richmond native whose meteoric career was only part of her brilliance.

Mrs. Singer's Richmond roots were strong. Her father was Thomas "Tricky Tom" Harris, legendary football, basketball and track coach at Virginia Union University. She was a member of John Marshall High School's Class of 1971 and had graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in communication arts and design.

After working in Boston at public television station WGBH and other prestigious firms, she earned her master of fine arts in graphic design at Yale University.

In 1980, she and two associates formed their own company and worked on several high-profile projects, including the Central Park Zoo, redoing signage, displays, and information and interpretive panels.

She was in demand as a lecturer and speaker. She taught college courses, including a class at Yale. Her students there were at the heart of the redesign of the U.S. census process in 2000.

In 1994, she founded her own company, Sylvia Harris LLC, recently renamed Citizen Research & Design. The new name reflects her mantra, "Design for the common good."

Her company, operating out of a brownstone in New York's Brooklyn borough where she lived, drew a sparkling lineup of clients, among them New York University, Columbia University, Cornell, the Ford Foundation, Lincoln Center, the U.S. Postal Service, Massachusetts General Hospital and Governor's Island.

Citizen R&D's website describes the company's mission to help its clients "reach, inform, and inspire the people they serve."

Writing for AIGA, the professional association for design, Laura House praised Mrs. Singer's "life's work dedicated to removing barriers by ensuring that public information systems are accessible to everyone."

She was asked to contribute in other ways as well. For instance, she took great pride in her long tenure and active role on the Postal Service's Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee.

Mrs. Singer's older sister, Juliette Layton Harris of Hampton, said that in retrospect she had seen "the seeds of what Sylvia would become" when she was a little girl.

Her sister's business sense was evident, Harris said. The family's house was next to Virginia Union's Hovey Field, and when football games drew crowds that exhausted the parking lots, sister Sylvia was ready to direct cars to the yard and collect money in a jar.

"She was so interconnected," said Harris. "And there were no barriers. She loved animals. She adopted two stray cats and a stray dog. She never lost her interest in helping those who were disadvantaged.

"She attracted all kinds of people, from the very accomplished to the struggling. She made them all feel that they had a friend."

As Harris spoke, she was in her sister's office in Brooklyn, tending to the sad business of the day. A man came to the company's door, she said, to pay his respects. "He said, 'I'm just one of Sylvia's thousand-and-one friends.'"

Harris said she took a long look at a sign posted in her sister's office. "Work hard and be nice to people," the sign reads.

Mrs. Singer's friend Ellen Goldsmith, the one who came from Oregon, said there was no end to how nice her friend could be.

"Her heart was so big," she said. "For her family, for all of us. Her heart was so big."

In addition to her sister, survivors include her husband, Gary Singer, and a daughter, Thai Harris Singer, both of Brooklyn.

Memorial service arrangements are incomplete.