On the Boards: Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, WA

Karen traveled to Seattle Wednesday to review exterior signs-in-progress for Providence Regional Medical Center campus in Everett, WA. Illustration shows placement of a vehicular directional sign at campus perimeter. In background, the new medical tower slated for completion May 1 of this year.

Trade-Marx Signs & Display is fabricating the signs. Photos above and below: housings and illuminated cabinets for parking signs.



Housings for illuminated cabinets reference the medical tower's modulated forms. Above, a study for vehicular wayfinding signs.

Also on the floor at Trade-Marx, a 12' wide x 15'-3" tall cross - part of the Providence logo to be mounted atop the towers.

On the Boards: Blanchfield Army Community Hospital - Fort Campbell Kentucky

Early collaboration makes all the difference when integrating environmental graphics with architecture. Elizabeth and Karen met Tuesday with ZGF Architects David Staczek and Mark Booth in their Portland office to review floor plans and elevations and discuss sign locations within the new additions to Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, KY.

We all noted that side-by-side patient room entries, while efficient in terms of sink and utility placement, made for confusing wayfinding when patient information stacks in close proximity. Especially so when nurses depend on colored flags in corridors to signal patient issues and room conditions.

We were able to include ZGF architects and planners Dena Cook and Dave Fisk in the conversation and within minutes, all agreed that the sinks could move.

A happy win for legibility, clarity and patient safety through early collaboration and wayfinding!

Another issue arose when we looked at placement of changeable insert holders on framed panels next to entry doors. With protruding frames, recessed panels do not accommodate both a sign and someone's fingers to insert a changeable message. Voila! Frames are flush with the panel and insert holder will sit proud of the surface.

In coordinating locations for ceiling mounted signs, we saw that sprinklers sometimes occurred at decision points for wayfinding. Thanks to our early collaboration, the sprinkler plan will be adjusted for signage.

Always of interest to the project, we also looked at how sign background colors might coordinate with the building palette.

On the Boards: University of Oregon - Ford Alumni Center

"Getting it right" with color palette is often a multi-tiered process at AK. Jay Cole of Center Pointe Signs has just stopped by our studio with yet another set of color options - each subtly different - for donor recognition panels at UO's Ford Alumni Center.

Donor panels will mount above room ID signs of 3form made with ecoresin and sporting raised numbers and braille. Digitally printed colors should echo the room ID palette in a more subtle, timeless fashion. It took another visit from Jay and a series of 8 more options before settling on just the right hue and value for the donor panels.

Out & About: Philanthropy Wall unveiling, Shriners Hospital for Children - Portland

With great fanfare and much anticipation, a new philanthropy wall was unveiled Sunday as part of daylong festivities surrounding the dedication of Portland's new hospital addition/remodel.

Shriners from around the country gathered for a first look at the new standard for recognition in all 22 Shriners Hospitals for Children. Designed and prototyped in Portland, the new system combines cast metal medallions, green glass acrylic, digitally printed film and stainless fixtures in a format that is easy to update and change with the evolution of the donor program.

The new system replaces a series of individual oak plaques, one for each donor and each with a separate medallion, to dramatically reduce the amount of required wall space.

Skip Stanaway, SRG Partnership and Elizabeth Anderson - happy collaborators.

Out & About: Shriners Hospitals for Children - Portland, Cafe Mural

The Portland hospital's temporary cafe mural is ready for visitors. Pat Grennan, Director of Community Affairs, Portland, spreads her arms in celebration and anticipation.

The temporary mural will stay up until permanent panels of high pressure phenolic laminate are installed for the July events surrounding the mural's topic, the Shriners Hospital Oregon East-West All-Star Football Game. The cafe and hospital addition are designed by SRG Partnership, architects.

Out & About & On the Boards: Shriners Hospitals for Children - Portland

Just in time for the dedication on Sunday, TubeArt Signs is unrolling and installing the temporary version of a wall graphic for the hospital's new cafe. Showcasing the Oregon East-West All-Star Football game, the mural has been produced in short order on digitally printed vinyl. The permanent installation in July will be of durable, graffiti resistant high pressure phenolic laminate.

Cherry is with the installers, making sure everything is copacetic.

Shriners staff, board members and SRG Architects stop by to check progress and find lots of familiar faces in the photos on the mural. Ready for Sunday!!

On the Boards & Out & About: Chemeketa Community College & OBP Digital

Chemeketa Community College's new campus in McMinnville, Oregon rests in beautiful Yamhill Valley, home to rolling hills and world class vineyards. Working with Yost Grube Hall Architecture to promote "sense of place" within a new classroom building, we designed specialty graphics to punctuate major corridors. Featuring photographs by Janis Miglavs, these full wall graphics appear as windows to nearby valley views.

The wall graphics will be digitally printed and subsurface laminated to glass. We joined Rich and Julie Anderson of Architectural Metalcrafters, sign contractors for the project, at OBP Digital to review OBP's printing capabilities. Above, Cherry unwraps samples from similar projects.

Chris Underwood gives a tour of his shop and chats about our project. Started by Chris's grandfather and formerly called Oregon Blueprint, OBP Digital is a great example of keeping up with technology and changing to meet the needs of our evolving industry.

Our projects succeed with collaboration, from project kick-off with owners and architects to the last details of fabrication and installation. We relish it all.

Out & About: Sakura Sunday - Portland, OR

Portland's First Annual Cherry Blossom Festival held special meaning as a celebration of blossoms, the season of spring and friendship between the United States and Japan. Portland's waterfront cherry trees were a gift to the City from the Japanese Grain Importers Association in 1989. This year, the city's first Sakura Sunday - Cherry Blossom Festival - and its gifts of hope and prayers were dedicated to victims of Japan's recent earthquakes and tsunamis.

Japan has celebrated cherry blossom season for centuries with picnics, music and dance under the trees. Portland's festival also included a riverfront gathering where, led by a Japanese priest, well-wishers sent prayers to Japan and flowers into the Willamette River which leads to the Pacific Ocean via the mighty Columbia.

Participants of all ages celebrated together under the trees.

On the Boards: Bay Area Hospital - Coos Bay, OR

A site visit and project kick-off for our work on the expansion of Bay Area Hospital provided a great excuse for a road trip to Oregon's south coast on April Fool's Day. We felt anything but foolish upon leaving cold, wet Portland for this warmer, sunnier climate zone.

ZGF Architect Paul Evans joined us for a site walk and documentation of existing conditions. Above, Abby snaps a photo of an existing sign while Paul correctly identifies its typeface: Helvetica - for which we now have so many alternatives!

Traversing the site with the sun on our backs.

Inside, we took on the role of visitor to understand how existing signs and other means help patients and visitors find their way. Here, Paul asks a volunteer what happens when no one is present.

Our friendly volunteer turned around the counter top sign to show the following message:

Following the site walk, we met our clients for a lively discussion of signage and wayfinding not only for the new addition, but for the entire hospital as it responds to the new construction.

In the News: Anacostia Library - Washington, DC

Anacostia Library is the first of six new DC Public Library buildings to be completed in a program to build architectural noteworthy facilities in a variety of Washington neighborhoods. Featured in this month's ARCHITECTURAL RECORD magazine and designed by Freelon Group of Durham NC, Anacostia Library also showcases new sign standards designed by Anderson Krygier, Inc. for the DC Library system. Above, canopy mounted dimensional letters are designed to be friendly, approachable and welcoming.

New sign standards include both exterior and interior signage. Above, an illuminated parking directional points the way to parking around the block and behind the building.

In addition to six new Libraries, the sign standards will be implemented in all existing contemporary libraries as they are updated and remodeled. The historic libraries of Washington DC are also being updated and AK has developed a sign standard to complement their historic character. Georgetown is the first of six to have implemented the historic sign program. Five additional historic libraries are in process.

Inside the library, collection identification on the stack end panels is easy to update and change as the collection moves around the library.

Interior palette and finishes are bold, colorful and inspiring.

On the Boards: Shriners Hospitals for Children - The Greatest Little Shrine Game in the World

Here we are, just weeks before our deadline, looking at photos and gathering content for a 28' wide x 8' high wall graphic slated for the new cafe at Shriners Hospital for Children, Portland. It will showcase the stellar efforts of Oregon Shriners and their communities in a year-round effort to produce the Shriners Hospital Oregon East-West All-Star Football Game from which 97% of net proceed go directly to patient care. Above, Cherry interviews participants as we gather photos for the display.

Exactly, one month later: design is complete, copy is written (and vetted) and we're presenting to the national facilities director for Shriners Hospitals for Children.

We're in the cafe, checking things out. Note the palette: carpet and graphic in perfect harmony.

The Graphic Wall. Our next installment: April 8th installation for April 10 dedication. Sometimes things go smoothly. We don't take it for granted.

Out & About & On the Boards: Fort Campbell, KY -Blanchfield Army Community Hospital

We made our first visit to a military hospital when we traveled with ZGF Architects to Fort Campbell, KY (home of the "Screaming Eagles") for a site visit . We're working on an addition that includes the Emergency Department (ED) where we were very inspired by the people we met in uniform. Above, Karen is listening to Major Schaeffer, head of the ED and mother of twin boys age 2 1/2. A veteran of two tours in Iraq, Major Schaeffer was gone for a full year of her boys' short lives. Her husband is getting ready to ship out for a third tour of his own.

On the boards: The Story of Writing - EA Lecture

In Portland Center Stage's production of FUTURA, we witness typography professor and librarian Lorraine Wexler give a lesson on the history of fonts in a future where the art of pen and paper has all but disappeared. The professor is particularly fond of the typeface, Futura.

In 2006, when Anderson Krygier designed signage and graphics for the new Gerding Theater at the Armory, we just happened to think Futura the perfect typeface to marry the original architecture's classic proportions with the modernist lines of its contemporary interventions. What could be more perfect than for AK to be a sponsor of the play!

As part of our sponsorship, Elizabeth rolled out butcher paper and wrote with real pens to demonstrate the history of writing in an interactive, pre-matinee chat before the Sunday March 6 presentation. Over 60 people attended.

In the theater lobby, amazing letterform sculptures continued the typography and lettering theme.