New Kent Wayfinding Signs Provide Whimsy and Direction

by Brittany Rees and Eric Rivers

Poking around town, locals and students alike may have noticed the recently installed wayfinding signs scattered across the city of Kent. Though the signs, erected over last winter, are sprinkled with compliments and quick facts about the city, they weren’t nearly as playful a project as their content may suggest.

City engineer and project leader Jim Bowling told Kent Stater staff earlier this year that the project took nearly four years to complete, and the entire Signage and Wayfinding Program cost around 230 thousand dollars. The primary goal, he said, was to help aid visitors in making their way around town and add character to the city.

The entire program began in 2011 with an initial push for blue and gold directional signs around Kent campus. Now complete with around 50 signs, the project has morphed into a push to help Kent brand itself.

“They also help to create a sense of place, these signs do,” Bowling said of the project’s secondary goal. Funded by the city’s development budget, the signs and banners across town were designed by Cleveland’s Studio Graphique and designer Andy McEntee.

In addition to arrows directing cars into parking lots and pedestrians downtown, Bowling’s team added in signs to capture the nature of the city, a concept thought up by focus groups held by Studio Graphique.

“We’ve really done a lot of these municipal wayfinding or city-wide wayfinding projects where you’re not only directing to a lot of the really good resources around the town but you’re also branding the community,” McEntee said. During what the studio calls its “dig-down” phase when it initially researches its clients, McEntee said his team found Kent to be unique and whimsical, influencing his design.

“It’s a bit of fun and whimsy from the downtown nature that led us to this design,” McEntee said. “Another part of that was the industrial feel as well of historic Kent.”

During his initial research, McEntee met with Bowling, the Downtown Mainstreet Group and a marketing team from Kent State to come up with a tone they wanted the city to have.

“Out of those meetings, what we really found was that the city of Kent has a hugely diverse population that is greatly eclectic,” McEntee said. “We really took all that into consideration and came up with a really eclectic and colorful palette. The content is whimsical.”

“High-five a stranger!” and “You are beautiful” are two of the stakeholder-approved markers found downtown. In addition to the vibrantly colored directional and complimentary signs, McEntee’s team also included fact-filled signs about Kent’s history.

“Not only did we try to take into account the modern feel, we also really tried to take into account the history as well, especially because Kent has such a heavy history,” McEntee said.

Bowling said the project was initially met with resistance; however, locals have now come around.

“The feedback’s been very positive,” Bowling said. “In fact, in one regard there was a gentleman who initially had problems with it but after hearing how it was helping visitors turned around and said, ‘That makes sense.”

 

 

Photos courtesy of Andy McEntee and Studio Graphique