Since 1987, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) has conducted its International Design Awards competition. Entries pour in from around the globe, and span the gamut from interpretive, dynamic-digital-sign displays to exterior wayfinding to branded environmental graphics.
Here’s a sampling of three winners from among the 400-plus entries received.
To peruse the full gallery, visit www.segd.org/awards/2015.
A Bridge to Branding
The Univ. of Nebraska and its surrounding Lincoln community have long been associated with the school’s Cornhusker football team. In the modern era of TV-channel saturation, virtually every “Husker” game is now televised, and Lincoln’s civic leaders wanted an iconic entry statement that would create a positive impression for TV audiences. This desire inspired Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler to spearhead the construction of a pedestrian bridge that would link the town’s Haymarket District, a thriving entertainment district, and Pinnacle Bank Arena. PC Sports, the bridge’s project-management firm, contracted Dimensional Innovations (Overland Park, KS) to develop an iconic sign program for the long-span, concrete bridge, which passes over railroad tracks.
The 611-ft.-long bridge features steel letters that spell out the city’s name, and are visible from Haymarket and adjacent highways. The letters entail approximately 43 tons of steel, and are illuminated with approximately 6,000 LED modules to create a handsome landmark that provides a powerful entry point to The Star City. Dimensional Innovations’ sister company, Shield Casework, fabricated wooden benches that complement that structure’s concrete and steel.
Tools and Talent
Since 1920, Snap-On Tools and its legendary socket-wrench sets and accessories have been a staple in the toolboxes of millions of American do-it-yourselfers. The company wanted to pay homage to this legacy with a series of interpretive panels and displays within a 4,350-sq.-ft. space at its Kenosha, WI corporate headquarters. Snap-On engaged Kahler Slater, a Milwaukee-based EGD firm, to devise a program that implements hundreds of diverse artifacts, while transforming them into a cogent story about the company’s growth. An exhibit replete with florid colors and elegant typography would’ve been grossly out of place; rather, Kahler Slater’s spartan, but powerful, execution features Snap-On’s signature red against a black backdrop.
Xibitz (Grand Rapids, MI) created a workshop feel via an illuminated, inset cabinet that spans a 150-ft. perimeter around the museum’s length, and serves as the focal point for the exhibit’s timeline. A custom rail system allows graphic insertion, with some magnetic elements adhering to the backdrop. Custom, mobile toolboxes display additional artifacts and also provide portability for the room, which doubles as a meeting and dining space.
We’ve Got Milk
Cornell Univ.’s Stocking Hall, where the Ivy League school houses its college of agriculture and life science, is also famous for its dairy bar, which produces pudding, ice cream and its signature Big Red Cheddar cheese in-house. Stocking had undergone an extensive renovation; what more fitting way to pay homage to the dairy bar’s status as a campus icon than bovine-themed environmental graphics – and a milk-bottle, rebus-style monument outside?
Calori + Vanden-Eynden, a NYC-based EGD firm, devised the whimsical program, which carries a black-and-white, spotted-cow design through the atrium lobby, up a staircase and through an observation deck that overlooks Stocking’s plant floor. Geograph Industries (Harrison, OH) fabricated the entire, 200,000-sq.-ft. program. A jury member noted, “Using the element of cow spots could have led to a too-obvious design. But the way the designers represented this element in 3-D space is what gives strength to this idea.”