Packaging the city
by Pat Morrison Knapp
Cities large and small are discovering the effective sign systems are an essential part of their marketing tool kits.
While large urban centers try to lure back the visitors they’ve lost to suburban shopping malls and theme parks over the past 30 years, smaller cities are attacking the syndrome of sameness that results from sprawl.
No matter their size, cities are realizing that to compete in the experience economy, they must deliver a place that is friendly and welcoming to visitors, and has a unique sense of place. And they’re learning that a nice package—including an effective signage program that helps visitors and residents find their way—can substantially enhance the experience.
“Good signage has become a best practice for cities, not an afterthought,” says Meryl Levitz, President and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., the centralized marketer of Philadelphia- area destinations. “It’s like having the house number on your front door. It means you are ready for visitors, and you are welcoming.”
Twenty years ago, Philadelphia launched a massive effort to reinvent itself as a prime tourist destination. Signage has been an important element of its success, and its vehicular and pedestrian sign programs have become models for other cities and states. In the past five years, hundreds of cities have implemented sign programs, recognizing their value not only in marking boundaries and helping people find their way, but in creating and reinforcing distinct brand identities.
The small town of Chamblee, eight miles north of Atlanta, GA, needed a way to distinguish itself from surrounding communities and, at the same time, celebrate its rail and industrial heritage. “Like other large metropolitan areas, you can go from one city to another outside Atlanta and not know when you’re leaving one and arriving in another,” says Kathy Brannon, Chamblee’s City Manager and CEO. “We wanted a way to distinguish ourselves, to say, ‘You’ve arrived in Chamblee, Georgia. This is who we are.”‘
Attraction and destination signage systems are one of many tools cities use to make themselves more attractive and user friendly. Civic buildings, streetscapes, landscaping, bus shelters, maps and literature, litter programs, lighting, improved parking amenities, and safety initiatives are all part of what makes a city appealing to visitors and residents alike. “All of these things work together to create a certain experience that people either will or will not remember favorably,” notes Darren Fava, Assistant Director of Streetscapes for Philadelphia’s Center City business improvement district.
More than meeting the functional requirements of helping people find their destinations, signage—particularly effective, well maintained signage—sends a subtle message that “This place is cared about. This place is well tended.”
“Of course it’s extremely important for the obvious reason: people really, really don’t want to get lost,” says Levitz. “But on another level, good signage signals good management. It tells people that a site is well organized, well managed, and that they’ll have a good time. It means things are in control.”
The advent of Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) has helped galvanize downtown revitalization efforts, including signage and streetscape programs. The BIDs often provide a funding source wherein businesses invest in the signage that helps visitors find them. In Los Angeles, the Confederation of Downtown Associations launched Downtown LA Walks, a $2 million wayfinding program that identifies more than 200 destinations in the city’s 350-block downtown core. Called the largest urban sign system ever built, the program uses an icon-based system to guide people through 13 special districts and encourages walking and public transportation.
Working with diverse and large groups of stakeholders, municipal staff members, and private entities is one of the major challenges in developing urban sign systems, says Wayne Hunt, Principal of Hunt Design Associates, which worked with project leader Corbin Design to develop the LA system. “Frankly it may not be the greatest business model for design firms,” notes Hunt. “You have this horizontal chart of approving bodies, and they don’t all have the same agenda. The approval process can be killer.” Hunt and Corbin finished design work on the LA project in 2000, but a protracted approvals process delayed implementation until April 2005.
For urban sign systems, working successfully with state and local Departments of Transportation (DOTS) is another obstacle. Most state and local DOTs defer to the federal Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) to regulate urban signage, even though the MUTCD was created for highway speeds and conditions, not downtown centers. Sign size, type height and color, and number of messages are the major sticking points; some DOTs choose to interpret the MUCTD literally, resulting in rather onerous restrictions on downtown signage.
But the regulatory environment may be changing. Some states, including Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, and New York, are developing guidelines specific to urban wayfinding. This could be good or bad, says Bob Trescott, Senior Planner and Vice President of Marketing for Guidance Pathways, a wayfinding system developer and fabricator that has worked with the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Redevelopment Association to provide input on urban wayfinding guidelines. “Regulations will standardize minimum safety standards for crashworthiness, windloading, and day and nighttime legibility, which is all good,” he notes. “But if they get into regulating the types of fonts and colors that can be used, or how logos can be used, that will seem over restrictive.”
Maintenance is another key issue. Once signs are up and helping people find their way, they need to be maintained, says Fava, whose group is the custodian for Philadelphia’s pedestrian signage as well as much of its vehicular signs. The Center City District spends between $30,000 and $50,000 annually on sign maintenance. “This is a long-term investment, and we have to protect it,” notes Fava. “When I get calls from other cities considering sign programs I tell them, ‘Don’t sell your project until you have money set aside for maintenance.’ If the one sign that gets knocked down or faded or damaged is the essential breadcrumb in someone’s path to a destination, the entire system has failed.”
Downtown LA Walks
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Client
Confederation of Downtown Associations, Los Angeles
Design
Corbin Design, Traverse City, MI;
Hunt Design Associates, Pasadena, CA
Design Team
Wayne Hunt (Principals in Charge); Matt McCormick, Jim Harper, John Temple, and In Sung Kim (designers)
Fabrication
Fluoresco Lighting & Signs, Tucson, AZ/Los Angeles, CA; Pannier Graphics, Gibsonia, PA
Project Management
Urban Place Consulting Group, Long Beach, CA
Photos
Hunt Design Associates
By the numbers, Los Angeles’ new downtown wayfinding system seems unfathomably complex: 1,301 signs in a four-square-mile area that encompasses 35O city blocks, 300 intersections, 5O streets, 30 freeway off ramps, eight subway stations, and hundreds of bus stops. The $2 million Downtown LA Walks program was launched by the Confederation of Downtown Associations, a coalition of business improvement districts (BIDs), to improve access to bus and subway systems and reduce traffic on LA’s crowded freeways.
“Downtown Los Angeles can be a confusing place to be,” says Darryl Holter, Chair of the Figueroa Corridor Business Improvement District and CEO of the Shammas Group, an auto dealership and commercial real estate business located downtown. “It was set up to connect the freeways and get people in and out as quickly possible, with very little concern for their experience while they’re here. The new wayfinding system will make it easier for people to find all the fantastic destinations we have to offer.”
Corbin Design, which has designed sign programs for more than 30 cities, and Hunt Design Associates, with 20 city systems under its belt, worked together to create a plan that breaks down LA’s complex street system into 13 special districts, each with a unique icon and color and its own collection of destinations.
The Confederation includes nine BIDs, each contributing to a program that would ultimately lead customers to their businesses. “So there was an initial expectation that there would be nine districts named in the sign system,” says Wayne Hunt. But using the “cab driver test,” the team quickly realized there were actually 13 districts. “For example, there were no BIDs for Bunker Hill or the Jewelry District, but these are very well known destinations that needed to be defined,” adds Hunt. The Confederation agreed, and the team developed distinct icons and color systems for all 13 districts.
The wayfinding strategy was based on Corbin’s theory of “functional redundancy,” that a wayfinding system works best when there is consistent repetition of messaging, colors, and shapes. “Symbols were an obvious choice for this project because there were so many areas to define,” notes Jeffry Corbin. “The challenge is creating a family of symbols that look like they obviously belong together, but can’t be mistaken for one another.” They also need to be illustrative but recognizable and simple but not too abstract, adds Hunt. The Civic Center district, for example, is represented by an iconic City Hall. A fan serves as Little Tokyo’s symbol, while the new Walt Disney Concert Hall was chosen as the icon for Bunker Hill. To help promote the use of the symbol system, the city of Los Angeles plans to provide the artwork free to any hotel, guidebook publisher, restaurant, BID, or, entity that wants to use them in publications. “The more familiar they become to everyone, the better so making this a true public domain icon system is great,” says Hunt. “I don’t think it’s ever been done before.”
Design work on the system was completed by November 2000, but due to a protracted approvals process—long even by Los Angeles standards—signage installation didn’t begin until April 2005. Meetings with stakeholder agencies, negotiating with the BIDs on choice of icons and colors, and working with other approving agencies was often tedious and always time consuming.
Negotiations with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and CalTrans spanned two years, resulting in many compromises on the original designs, particularly the vehicular component. “We ended up defaulting to a kind of CalTrans/federal highway standard,” notes Hunt. “We gave back a lot of the design we wanted, but still ended up with a very good and very functional system,” adds Corbin. “We wanted black backgrounds for the signs, and we compromised and ended up with dark green. But we did get our ‘language’ and our icons in their colors, so in the end the system is viable.”
Since one of the program’s major goals is to promote walking and use of public transportation, vehicular signs direct people to parking facilities within the 13 districts. Then a two-layered pedestrian sign system takes over. First, typical words-and-arrows signs direct walkers to destinations within three or four blocks. Second, the system includes unique pedestrian maps on every corner—350 of them. These heads-up maps put the walker in the center of a four-block-square area, then move with him as he progresses on his route. The fiberglass-embedded maps include detailed information such as street number ranges, business addresses, and building names. “It’s one of the most ambitious mapping systems we’ve ever done or seen,” notes Corbin.
Vehicular signs were designed in two sizes: one for streets allowing speeds over 35 mph (with 6-in.-high type) and another for slower streets (with 4.5-in. type). About 112,000 people use public transit daily to access downtown, so highlighting major subway and bus facilities was also an important component of the system. To support the system, a website includes information on walking and driving in the downtown area.
Corbin and Hunt agree the system is highly functional and attractive to boot. But they also agree philosophically on the role that signage should—and should not—play in an urban environment. “Signs are there to provide information,” explains Corbin. “They are certainly part of the overall program that a city uses to market itself but, at times, the design of signage gets too brand driven and not sufficiently functionally driven,” he adds. “The design foundation should be wayfinding strategy, not marketing.”
Hunt puts it another way: “Signs shouldn’t be too cool or over designed. They should be a somewhat neutral tool that is effective and recognizable in the urban landscape, and they should look like they all go together. But the sign is not the art object. The bottom line is still the experience itself.”