The 12th International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD 2004)was held d- ing September 29-October 2, 2004, at City College, CUNY, in the heart of Harlem, New York City. GD 2004 attracted 94 participants from 19 countries. In response to the call for papers, the program committee received 86 re- larsubmissionsdescribingoriginalresearchand/orsystemdemonstrations.Each submissionwasreviewedbyatleastthreeprogramcommitteemembersandc- ments were returned to the authors. Following extensive e-mail discussions, the program committee accepted 39 long papers (11 pages each in the proceedings) and 12 short papers (6 pages each). In addition, 4 posters were displayed and discussed in the conference exhibition room (2 pages each in the proceedings). Theprogramcommittee ofGD 2004invitedtwo distinguishedlecturers.P- fessorPaulSeymourfromPrincetonUniversitypresenteda newcharacterization ofclaw-freegraphs(jointworkwithMariaChudnovsky).ProfessorErikDemaine from MIT reported on his joint work with Fedor Fomin, MohammadTaghi - jiaghayi and Dimitrios Thilikos, concerning fast (often subexponential) ?x
- parameter algorithms and polynomial approximation schemes for broad classes of NP-hard problems in topological graph theory. A survey of the subject by Professors Demaine and Hajiaghayi is included in this volume. As usual, the annual graph drawing contest was held during the conference. This time the contest had two distinct tracks: the graph drawing challenge and the freestyle contest. A report is included in the proceedings.