The building's architecture was designed to make the most of the stunning natural environment with walls of glass providing views of the nearby Wasatch Mountains and a rooftop garden providing 360-degree views of the Salt Lake Valley.
The signage uses materials like water-cut stainless steel, frosted glass, and vinyl letters on glass to play with transparency, and the design is driven by language. The typographic treatment locates words within a larger context – like a single word in a text, or finding information in the library. The cut-off type also suggests something growing or just coming up over the horizon.
Directional signage in the stacks uses a template for the Dewey Decimal System used to organize books. Librarians can easily print new inserts themselves, should they need to update the numbers of shelving locations.
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Design Team:
Michael Gericke (Principal in Charge), Lior Vaturi, Elizabeth Meiers, Wayne McCutcheon/Entro Communications Associate Designers Entro Communications, Toronto, Canada; Wayne McCutcheon; Raymond Cheung
Consultants:
Wayne McCutcheon/Entro Communications
Fabricators:
Cornelius
Jury Comments:
"This signage and graphics system is perfectly integrated with the library's architecture. The logo/signature is a stylized representation of stacks, strongly upholding the notion that in this age of easy access to electronic information, the book is still the iconic source and still what a library is about. The typography is simple and the graphic designer's skill is in their orchestration of using type as texture, especially in identification where a sense of transparency is created by cutting off the type and puncturing the surface with elements marching around the edges. The free-standing directory is especially noteworthy, working with a playful grid of alternating squares and color-coding elements that indicate location."