After years of service, the wayfinding and placemaking signage system in Powder Springs, Georgia, was showing its age. The city’s signs suffered from typical wear and tear and were off brand after the city updated its visual identity. Plus, sign placement didn’t support newer attractions and destinations and didn’t connect the city to the regional multipurpose…
Temporary home builder signs drive as much as 75% of traffic to new subdivisions. Sadly, the bright colors, waving flags, and large-font calls to action also create unattractive and off-brand signage clutter that deters potential new residents. What are high-growth municipalities to do?A strong but fair home builder sign policy allows home builders to drive…
Texas A&M University’s move to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) changed the college football landscape. It also presented the university and its partner cities Bryan and College Station with a new challenge. How do we guide football fans to historic downtowns, retail areas, and tourist destinations across two cities and a sprawling college campus? Initial plans…
Waxahachie, Texas, is a community of nearly 40,000 residents on the southern edge of Dallas. It’s the last stop in town for travelers headed south on I-35 to Waco, Austin, or San Antonio. Waxahachie partnered with NSP to capture I-35 traffic and direct it toward the city’s historic downtown and destinations like Navarro College, Chautauqua…
Ah, the dreaded request for proposal process. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, your city’s wayfinding RFP or RFQ is a necessary component of designing and implementing a successful municipal wayfinding and placemaking signage system. There’s an art to creating a request for proposal that yields the result your municipality seeks. Before you issue your city’s…
A robust civic wayfinding and placemaking system can accelerate economic development for your community by orienting residents and visitors and driving them into your commercial core. City planners often think that wayfinding and placemaking projects are expensive investments with never-ending timelines – and, to be fair, they are a major undertaking. But there are ways to…
Unlike automobile-oriented systems that prioritize vehicular traffic over other forms of transportation, multimodal transportation systems incorporate walking, cycling, and public transit equally. These different modes of transportation require different approaches to wayfinding signage. At NSP, we apply a three-tiered hierarchy to wayfinding in multimodal transportation systems. The Directional Tier focuses on vehicular orientation. Route functionality…
Municipal wayfinding signage systems motivate residents and visitors toward higher engagement and increased daily spending. Through directional wayfinding signs, gateways and entrances, public art pieces, pedestrian map kiosks, and connected digital experiences, wayfinding systems help to: Reduce travel frustrations – getting lost, finding parking, etc. – that impact return visits. Motivate traffic to enter retail…
Wayfinding and placemaking signage projects often moved to the backburner as budget tightened early in the pandemic. However, with residents continuing to flee major urban centers, small cities and suburban and exurban towns have an unexpected opportunity to invest in their communities. Even for small cities, wayfinding and placemaking signage systems help to improve citizen…
Although planes, trains, and automobiles are America’s most popular transportation modes, there are a growing number of people traveling by foot. Do your pedestrian signs support these citizens? From the popularity of wearable fitness technology to the promotion of civic walking programs to increased interest in car-less lifestyles, cities must consider how they are supporting walkability and…