The Writing on the Wall. Born in subversion, graffiti has gained the sanction of the fine art and corporate worlds alike. Environmental graphics was the next logical step.
The airport signage for Laredo International Airport was inspired by the modern geometric forms and materials found in its architectural setting. The building's forms were adapted for the signage, creating an interesting and unique sign type palette. The use of local colors from Southwest Texas' Hispanic heritage provides excellent contrast for legibility of wayfinding information. The interior overhead directional signs are cantilevered from the stone columns with three steel tubes and incorporate the angular geometry found throughout the architectural detailing.
Five 65-inch bronze plaques interpret the settlement of Minneapolis Gateway District at five periods in history. The Minnesota Historical Society, HOK Architects, McGough Construction, and the Federal Reserve Bank provided input for the project. Gruppo coordinated all participants, interpreted design intent, scale, treatments and methods for completion. The biggest challenge was to focus all groups on a workable plan, then execute the approved plan by coordinating a disparate group of disciplines.
Nortel Networks, a wireless telecommunications company, asked for an innovative atmosphere in their R&D facility in Calgary. Located in the Canadian Rockies, the environmental graphics combined wireless imagery and wordplay with a site contextual "outdoorism" that dominated the location's culture, especially the younger tech industry workers employed at this campus.
The Jack Daniels Distillery is internationally known and described through its advertising, which depicts a bucolic hollow and an immutable, rural, picturesque community. The design challenge was to fit a new visitor center into the sylvan hollow and to create a facility that felt like it "has always been there." The center contains pre-tour and post-tour facilities, a theater, a historic bar, a retail area, and special facilities for conferences.
In Silicon Valley, Nortel Networks built a new home for their optical switching enterprise. The six-story facility would come to house office, laboratory, and research supporting the evolving use of light waves to transport data and knowledge, hence the theme, "light makes vision possible." The experience of optical research is presented with references to the physics of light and color, as well as human sight and intellectual vision.
