Progressive educators recognize that the learning process should not be limited to the classroom and the exchange between teachers and students. In fact, according to a 2013 Gallup State of America’s Schools Report, only 55% of K-12 students are engaged in the traditional learning process.

Introducing experiential graphics into built environments turns the building itself into an educator. Consider a simple example of  labeling a drinking fountain in multiple languages with engaging typography. Not only does this teach one how to say drinking fountain in other languages, it teaches a more subtle value of inclusiveness.

The value of ambient learning is not limited to the education industry. The truth is, every organization is in the business of educating. Businesses educate their employees and customers on their history, their processes, their products. Non-profit organizations educate their volunteers, donors and those they serve. Religious institutions educate their people as well. In fact, historically, churches have done a magnificent job through stained glass and art. Consider that Leonardo DaVinci’s famous “Last Supper” painting was commissioned for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what pictures would make a difference in your building?  Schedule an appointment to explore what ambient learning could do for you.

See just a few of the examples of ambient learning we developed for Delta College below.

The post Ambient Learning: Environments that Educate appeared first on Ideation.

Your building and office space is your chance to influence how people feel in your space and what they think about you and your company. Your name probably already exists on the outside of your building – and it should, to identify you. Do you really want to repeat the same thing inside your front doors? No. Let’s be honest, your guests already know your company name and so do your employees.

Your building should tell your story and your reception area is the first chapter.

Seize the opportunity to say something people don’t know about you, and don’t feel you must use words.  If your clients come in anxious or fearful, give them peace.  If it’s your staff that makes your company so special, show it. If you’re a non profit organization, show a picture that represents your mission. Please, just show or say something other than your company name.

Your goal is to create a conversation starter. No one is going to ask you about your name.

The picture above is a reception area we designed for an engineering firm. Not what you’d expect, right? Well neither is their innovative approach to what they do. We had the wall hand painted by a street artist. It’s a conversation starter with their guests…”Wow, tell me about that!”

Need help with this? Let’s talk.

The post What Not To Say In Your Reception Area appeared first on Ideation.

Our clients often call on us to help them re-imagine the exterior of their buildings. It could be a dentist that acquired an older practice. It could be a retailer or restaurant that is moving into a spot previously held by a similar business. It could be a manufacturer that wants to increase name and brand recognition. The reasons are nearly endless, but the goal is generally the same: to make people notice and express the brand.

While signage is part of the solution, something more is often needed. While the “more” could involve more expensive architectural changes or cladding, “more” can often be accomplished at a much lower cost with a well-designed exterior paint job. Usually, the client had budgeted to repaint the building anyway.

This is something we practice as we preach!  The above picture is of our new studio.  The incremental cost to paint the 3-color design shown was just 10% more than if we had painted it a single gray color!

Successful design doesn’t have to be expensive.  Schedule an appointment to re-imagine the exterior of your building or explore the Power of Paint.

The post The Power of Paint: More Bang for Your $ appeared first on Ideation.

Environmental Design Tells a Story

A congregation identifies strongly with its church home. Often the very architecture of the church can give visitors a sense of what they will find inside the walls. Is it a conservative church? Will they speak a traditional message? Are they more contemporary? After all, you would not expect to walk into St. Paul’s Cathedral and find wayfinding signs sporting a Comic Sans font. Even if you did not understand why it felt wrong, your brain would still pick up on the lack of design cohesion.

Not only do signs say something about the church as a body but they also communicate the message of the church.  You would not want to trivialize the spoken words by using imagery that does not strengthen what is taught. This is why wayfinding signs and environmental graphics are so vital. Environmental graphic designers take all of this into consideration when designing custom signs for churches.

Blending New Signs with Old Architecture

A perfect example the how signs play an important role in the ‘feel’ of a church is Kirk in the Hills Church. One of the challenges presented by church officials was to create a sign plan that worked with their existing architecture. Kirk in the Hills contracted the Environmental Design team at Ideation to create a wayfinding system that preserved the ‘feel’ of their church.

At Kirk of the Hills, everyone wanted to preserve the architecture’s role in establishing the church’s brand identity. Several of the areas of the church were of particular importance. The entrance to the original chapel and the Tower of the Apostles required just the right signage to preserve the sense of respect that the rooms themselves commanded.

A Classic Message and a Modern Church

Other churches may not have the Gothic architecture of Kirk of the Hills, but their need to move people both physically and spiritually was the same.

For instance, the Kensington Church Campus in Troy MI gives us an example of how two churches can share the same message in different ways. Yet, just from the signs, one knows that the ‘feel’ of the churches is different. That is what environmental design is about.

Signage for Environmental Design

Many people know that visual content is a valuable tool, but not many know why it’s so important.

Data shows that images reach an individual’s brain faster than textual information or audio. In fact, a person’s brain is programmed to recognize and make sense of visual information more efficiently.

If you consider body language, traffic signs, maps, facial cues, and advertisements, then it’s not hard to see how we have adapted to visual cues.

Knowing this, environmental graphic designers produce many different types of signs for churches. These visual cues help reach people faster and easier.  This could even be in the form of a story wall like the one at Woodside Church in Royal Oak MI.

No matter what your church building looks like or the feeling you hope to convey, environmental designers like those at Ideation can put together a sign plan that builds a brand identity for your church.

Too often, companies spend a lot of money on new signs without considering the role their brand identity can play in their space.

– Daren Bossenberger, Ideation Founder

Ideation Orange works with churches in Michigan, across the United States, and around the world. If you are interested in how environmental design can help you created branded space, contact Ideation Orange for a consultation.

The post Environmental Design for Churches appeared first on Ideation.

Kirk in the Hills Church (Bloomfield Hills, MI) is of Gothic design and patterned after the famous Melrose Abbey in Scotland that was built in the 13^th Century.

The new welcome center was identified with anodized aluminum letters given a bronze finish.  Photos © 2017 Gene Meadows.

A WAYFINDING CHALLENGE:  NOT ENOUGH DIRECTIONAL SIGNS

Discussions with team members from Kirk in the Hills identified several challenges affecting the guest experience. One of these challenges was the lack of interior directional signage. Recent changes to how space was being utilized further complicated navigation and was the impetus for the project.

New floor identification and directory signs designed to direct and complement the interior design. Photo © 2017 Gene Meadows.

A WAYFINDING CHALLENGE:  UNMARKED ROOMS AND AREAS

Another challenge to a comfortable guest experience was unmarked rooms and common areas.  To make matters worse, many of these destinations had taken on different names over the history of the church – the same room was often referred to differently by different people.

This challenge was addressed by defining clear names for each room and area, identifying the area with a sign and referring to it consistently in directional signs and floor maps.

Destinations are now clearly identified with designated room names. Photo © 2017 Gene Meadows.

A WAYFINDING CHALLENGE:  YEARS OF SPACE EVOLUTION

The third challenge to a comfortable guest experience was some navigational confusion resulting from multiple architectural expansions over time. For example, the Abbey was built and connected to the older Kirk House structure. To get to level 2 of the Kirk House, one has to ascend stairs from level 2 of the Abbey. This was confusing to guests and was addressed with clear strategically placed signage.

A combination of strategically placed directional signs, floor directories and area identification signs resolved navigational uncertainty.  Photos © 2017 Gene Meadows.

LETTING ARCHITECTURE LEAD

When performing our initial Experience Audit of the interior, the Ideation design team made several observations that would influence the final design of the wayfinding signage.  One of these was the significant role architecture was already playing in shaping the guest experience.

There were several areas such as the entrance to the original chapel and the Tower of the Apostles that needed to be treated very respectfully. The architecture—comprised of marble, stone, leaded glass and stained glass—shaped the experience.  While signage was needed, it must not detract from the existing architectural beauty.

The entrance to Kirk in the Hills’ iconic Tower of the Apostles was identified with bronze letters while the entrance to the original chapel was marked with a more appropriate plaque style sign. Photos © 2017 Gene Meadows.

BALANCING THE OLD AND NEW

The Ideation design team also recognized that there was clearly both an “old” and “newer” look inside the church.  While much of the interior had the original 13^th Century gothic style, more recently added spaces had a more modern feel. Our wayfinding sign designs would need to traverse both of these styles gracefully.

We accomplished this by defining a collection of materials, colors, and finishes that would work well in both the traditional and newer spaces. From these materials, we designed 22 different sign types. We then created a simpler variation of the sign types for the older or more traditional spaces.  Typography was used consistently across both old and new spaces.

New Abbey lounge invites guests and members to live, love and linger.  Photos © 2017 Gene Meadows.

DESIGN FOR APPROACHABILITY

The recently updated spaces, such as the new Abbey lounge, were designed to create a more informal and communal environment. While the new signage throughout the church needed to respect its surrounding architecture, reduced formality was also a goal.

In the spirit of this, lower case lettering was used in all signs except when referring to “Kirk in the Hills.”  The message, Live, Love, Linger was added using dimensional letters in the Abbey lounge.

Room identification signs for the administrative offices. Photo © 2017 Gene Meadows.

Exterior entrance identification signs produced from cast aluminum plaques. Photo © 2017 Gene Meadows.

SUMMARY

The final solution was comprised of 200 unique signs produced from 22 different sign types. According to lead designer, Michael Garavaglia, “It was thrilling to work with such a significant architectural landmark in the community. Our goal was to come up with a solution that respected both the architectural heritage of the church and the forward momentum of the community inside it. It required a measured approach that was both systematic and flexible.”

If you need help bringing comfort and clarity to your space, we’d be happy to help. Contact us.

The post Wayfinding Signage: Navigating Old and New Architecture appeared first on Ideation.

Ideation Orange: Yes, we can.

Client: “Could it break apart into (9) pieces that we could take to different locations?”

Ideation Orange: Yes, it can.

Client: “Can we have it by Friday?”

Ideation Orange: Yes!

photo by Terry Sykes.

Uniting People With a Portable Graphic

It started with this image and a call from our customer, Woodside Bible Church, a multi-site church with 9 campuses across Metro Detroit.

A new message series entitled “Better Together” was being kicked-off in tandem with their Annual Celebration. The goal was to give each campus a piece of the portable graphic on Sunday morning, inviting congregants to write on the graphic, things they were thankful for.

By Sunday evening, all pieces would end up at the Troy Campus. They were fully assembled in time for the Celebration Dinner.

Team Ideation quickly engineered a solution using ½” thick foam board. We cut nine pieces in the shape of rectangular Lego pieces. Each of these would easily but securely interlock into one large portable graphic.

The Better Together image provided by the client worked great for their programs and web site, however, it’s resolution would not hold up at 29’. Ideation’s design team fixed this with a scalable image with lighter colors that would provide sufficient contrast for the hand writing to come.

photo by Terry Sykes

By printing direct to the foam board, we had a surface where people could write. A flat-bed CNC router precisely cut individual pieces in the shape of rectangular Legos. We made sure to construct each one with tight tolerances for a secure final assembly.

After Thanksgiving, the church used the graphic as a stage backdrop.

The post Woodside Church: A Portable Graphic to Unify 9 Campuses appeared first on Ideation.