Betty Jane Willis (née Whitehead; May 20, 1923 – April 19, 2015) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

visual artist and graphic designer. Born in Overton,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, she is best known for having been the designer of the

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a Las Vegas landmark funded in May 1959 and erected soon after by Western Neon. The sign was designed by Betty Willis at the request of Ted Rogich, a local salesman, who sold it to Clark County, Nevada. ...

, and has been attributed to being an influencer in defining modern Las Vegas' visual image.

Biography

Willis born on May 20, 1923 in Overton, Nevada, the daughter of Stephen R. Whitehead, the first assessor of

Clark County, Nevada Clark County is located in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,265,461. Most of the county population resides in the Las Vegas Census County Divisions, which hold 1,771,945 people as of the 2010 Census, across ...

, and homemaker Gertrude Meader. She grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada in the first two-story building that was built there. She went to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 1942 where she attended art school. Willis returned to Las Vegas where she first took a job at the courthouse, then worked as a commercial artist. She began her career as a commercial artist at

YESCO YESCO is a privately owned manufacturer of electric signs based in Salt Lake City, founded by Thomas Young in 1920. The company provides design, fabrication, installation and maintenance of signs. Many notable sign projects have been produce ...

, ad-art sign companies, and

Fox West Coast Theaters Fox Theatres was a large chain of movie theaters in the United States dating from the 1920s either built by Fox Film studio owner William Fox, or subsequently merged in 1929 by Fox with the West Coast Theatres chain, to form the Fox West ...

. She then moved on to designing neon signs at Western Neon. She died at the age of 91 at her home in Overton, Nevada.

Career

Willis was the only female commercial artist at her first job at YESCO, because creating neon signs had traditionally been a man’s trade. She designed various newspaper advertisements before designing

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

s. Willis designed many signs for motels including the

Moulin Rouge Hotel The Moulin Rouge Hotel was a hotel and casino located in West Las Vegas that was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1992. Although its peak operation lasted only six months in the second half of 1955, it was the first dese ...

, the Blue Angel Motel and Blue Heaven bar, and the Del Mar Motel. Her designs are mid-century modernist and examples of

Googie architecture Googie architecture ( ) is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture, Jet aircraft, jets, the Atomic Age and the Space Age. It originated in Southern California from the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s, and was pop ...

. Her signs are drawn by hand and the sign that she designed for the Moulin Rouge Hotel was her own hand lettering inspired by French-style lettering that she studied. In her design for the Del Mar Hotel, she wanted one section of the neon to be seen from multiple angles. Willis continued to design signs until she retired at the age of 77.

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign

It was at Western Neon that Willis designed her signature piece, the

, completed in 1959. She was approached by a salesman named Ted Rogich, who was in contact with Clark County officials, who wanted a sign that would be located on the highway and would welcome people into Las Vegas. After studying other signs around Las Vegas and southern California, Willis created a design that was unique from other signs at the time. It had a diamond shape, a shape that was unusual for signs, and flashing neon lights that created movement. The word “Welcome” was created with silver dollars as the backing to attribute to Nevada's nickname, the Silver State. The back of the sign featured the words, “Drive Carefully and Come Back Soon” that were meant to welcome people visiting Las Vegas. Willis never trademarked the design, later saying "It's my gift to the city." The sign has now become an icon of Las Vegas and is highlighted on many objects today. The sign appeared on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Willis, Betty 1923 births 2015 deaths American graphic designers American women graphic designers People from the Las Vegas Valley 20th-century American artists 20th-century American women artists Artists from Nevada 21st-century American women