He is noted for his paintings of New Mexico, for his calligraphy style known as Calligraphic Lettering, and as the coauthor and illustrator of the Mesaland series of children's books.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri on December 29, 1895, Douglass graduated from Monmouth College in Illinois with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1920.
In the summer of 1920 he finished a tour of Scotland and left on the Lancaster from York, England for Egypt where he became an instructor at the American University in Cairo.
His interest in football led Douglass to develop a new style of lettering for athletic jerseys that were widely licensed.
As author of “Calligraphic Lettering”, his style was adopted by the National Collegiate Athletic Conference in 1956 after being published by Watson-Guptill Publications in 1948.