Waynefinding: Wayne Hunt on Crafting Clarity, Community, and a Lasting Design Legacy

July 16, 2025

Episode 5: Voices of Experience with Wayne Hunt of Hunt Design.

For SEGD Fellow Wayne Hunt, founder of Pasadena-based Hunt Design, wayfinding has always meant more than signage. It’s about shaping places people can truly experience—helping them navigate, feel oriented, and engage with their environment. That philosophy has defined a career spanning over four decades, shaping how millions of people move through civic spaces, cultural landmarks, and everyday environments.

From Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., Hunt Design has completed more than 200 wayfinding, signage, and exhibit projects across 20 states and several countries. Yet Wayne’s impact extends beyond the built environment—he’s also been a longtime SEGD leader, mentor, and advocate for the next generation of designers.

Around his office, they jokingly call it “Waynefinding”—a term that captures both Wayne’s personal humor and his professional mission: making complex places clearer, easier to navigate, and more welcoming to everyone.

What It Means to Help People Find Their Way

For Wayne, the path into environmental graphic design wasn’t linear. Trained as a graphic designer, he quickly realized there was an opportunity to marry graphic design with architecture—what was once called “architectural signing.”

That idea became Hunt Design. Founded in 1977, the firm has since delivered pivotal projects that balance clarity with respect for place. One of the most visible examples: the DC National Mall Comprehensive Sign Plan for the National Park Service.

Completed in 2011, the program introduced over 500 signs and maps guiding 25 million annual visitors to more than 50 museums, monuments, and memorials across 400 acres. The design—porcelain pylon sign towers, universally legible maps, and destination pictograms—was developed through extensive review with civic agencies and planning commissions. It stands as a model of durable, thoughtful wayfinding.

At the heart of each project is the same principle Wayne teaches his students at ArtCenter College of Design: “Helping people access, enjoy, and understand complex places is both an art and a science.”

From Practice to Teaching, and Back Again

Wayne’s belief in accessible, human-centered design isn’t just reflected in his firm’s work—it’s something he has passed on through decades of education and mentorship. Beyond ArtCenter, he has spoken at USC, Harvard, and SEGD events, including serving as SEGD President from 1999–2000.

He often describes the designer’s role as solving real-world problems with clarity and care: identifying a challenge, understanding its constraints, and shaping an effective, enduring solution.

Wayne also shows up for the SEGD community in a uniquely personal way. Each year, he donates an original hand-painted piece to the SEGD Auction for Excellence, where his artwork is consistently among the top-selling items. Proceeds from the auction directly support SEGD’s educational programming—a cause Wayne has supported for years.

Legacy That Lasts

For Wayne, the connection to SEGD has always been about shared purpose and shared community. As he reflects in his Voices of Experience film, there’s a lasting satisfaction in contributing to the physical world:

“There’s something about being in a real place that I love. And if we can help make that place clearer, easier to use, more fun to be in—that’s really satisfying.”

From helping establish SEGD as a national organization in its early years to guiding emerging designers today, Wayne Hunt’s influence lives on. His legacy is visible in Hunt Design’s many civic and cultural projects, in his books—including Environmental Graphics: Projects and Process, Signs for Your Business, and Graphics for Architecture—and in the countless designers he’s mentored along the way.

It’s a lifetime dedicated to making places clearer, more beautiful, and easier to navigate—through design that puts people first.

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Episode 5: SEGD’s Voices of Experience with Wayne Hunt

Filmed during SEGD’s 50th anniversary celebration in Washington, DC by Abigail Honor of Lorem Ipsum, this episode captures Wayne Hunt’s reflections on a lifetime of designing for clarity, connection, and place.

Watch the fifth episode of Voices of Experience featuring Wayne Hunt, FSEGD.

Join us every two weeks as we continue honoring SEGD Fellows whose work has shaped the environments—and experiences—that define our world.

Because experience design isn’t just about signs—it’s about showing up, giving back, and helping others find their way.