Downtown Indianapolis Signage Program

Merit Award

With more than 19 million visitors per year, downtown Indianapolis is experiencing dramatic growth. A number of cultural, sporting and governmental venues are generating significant interest in the downtown, but the competing signs leading to these venues were generating confusion. The goals of developing the new wayfinding program were: to identify downtown as a destination from the highway; to enhance downtown's public image; to better organize and present information about downtown destinations; to simplify traffic patterns by guiding drivers along specific routes; to identify public parking; and to create ongoing policies for signing venues for traffic and pedestrian use. Corbin Design's solution for organizing the information centered on the creation of four quadrants based on the historic City Plan, originally derived from the plan for Washington, DC.

Jury Comments: 

"The designers took a difficult wayfinding challenge and created a unique and effective system based on the simple, symbolic identification of the city quadrants. The map-like quadrant symbol used in a "you are here" style, sets up a strong visual clue for newcomers trying to understand the basics of where they are in the downtown area. Color is used to subtly reinforce wayfinding aspects of the program by identifying near and far destinations."

Design Firm: 

Corbin Design

Client: 

Downtown Indianapolis, Inc.

Location City: 

Indianapolis, Indiana

Project Area: 

N/A

Open Date: 

N/A

Project Budget: 

N/A

Photo Credits: 

Dan Francis

Design Team: 

Jeffry Corbin (Principal in Charge), Jim Harper, Matt McCormick

Consultants: 

N/A

Fabricators: 

Poblocki & Sons

Related Links: 

New Member Offer

Click to access the 2020 "Never been an SEGD member before" $185 sign up offer

Upcoming SEGD Events

2023 SEGD Academic Summit
2023 Wayfinding and Placemaking
2023 Experience Washington D.C.