When South Puget Sound Community College decided to consolidate its student services into a newly remodeled building called 22 College Center, it wanted an interior environmental graphics program that would clearly identify departments, reflecting the school’s identity and the special qualities of its location.

SPSCC sits on 101 wooded acres in Olympia, Washington. The College Center is located at the heart of campus, and will house several departments, including student services, advising, and the library. We created a graphic program centered on an image of Evergreen trees, to reflect the college’s unique surroundings. This graphic appears throughout the building, calling out departments with a highly visible, tone-on-tone blue graphic band—a visually interesting way to integrate the school’s colors into the program.

One department that receives special graphic treatment is Student Services. The two-level building has an open central atrium, so the Student Services department on the second floor is visible from the lower level. The large-scale, eye-catching panel identifies the department and includes a typographic treatment listing the services offered.

By reinforcing the school’s identity through a clear department identification system, this program will help enhance the new building, creating a graphically interesting space that inspires school spirit.

Renovations will begin in December and the building, which is being designed by SRG Partnership, is slated for completion by July 2013.

This week we’ve been enjoying the sunshine with a side of punk rock graphics, cool Nike+ visualizations, and a creative design solution for diabetics.

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It’s (really big) outdoor art season.

An awesome visualization of runners’ routes in Manhattan.

A history of punk rock graphic design.

They’re just prints for now, but might become actual bicycles. In which case, sign us up.

The dying art of large-scale ad painting.

Creative design solution for hiding the insulin pumps and glucose monitors that diabetic women wear.

Image: Sex Pistols album cover for 1977’s “God Save the Queen”

Heading into the long weekend, we’re getting a glimpse of the weird world of circus art, enjoying celebrities’ personal letterheads, and learning about creating campaign logos. Happy 4th of July!

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Designing campaign logos is more than just writing candidates’ names in red, white, and blue.

The dying art of sideshow banners.

Creating good pictures is about to get easier with this new technology that lets you focus images after you’ve taken them.

A great collection of letterheads, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural design to Ozzy Osbourne’s surprisingly tame one.

From a redesigned boom box to a purifying water bottle, check out the clever designs of the 2011 IDEA Awards winners.

Image: Johnny Meah’s “Human Blockhead” banner at the Meadowlands State Fair (photo: Phil Patton) via AIGA

This week we’ve been introduced to Apple’s new Headquarters, Nordstrom’s classy wayfinding icons, and the tastiest placeholder text generator ever.

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The iSpaceship has landed.

Everything’s better with bacon, even your placeholder text.

Simple and clever concert poster for The Rolling Stones (not the Rolling Stones, but a Stones cover band. Articles are important, kids!)

The Olympic Torch for the London games: a gold, shiny, thoughtful design.

Physics can create some pretty neat art: check out these sound waves and rice, plus swinging pendulums.

Nordstrom puts its own stylish twist on wayfinding icons.

Won’t you look stylish riding your mahogany bike in your chic new biking clothes? Oh yes. You will. 

Image: Bacon Ipsum

In May 2010, Nintendo of America opened its new Redmond, Washington, headquarters with a ceremony attended by the governor, the presidents of Nintendo and Nintendo America, and, of course, Mario and Luigi.

Studio SC designed a wayfinding environmental graphics program for this new building, a five-story, 300,000-square foot structure, with an adjacent three-story parking garage. ZGF Architects was the architect and Turner Construction the general contractor.

In designing the graphics system, SC had to balance both the serious and the fun sides of the multi-billion dollar company. “Overall, SC sought to create a wayfinding program that embodied both the exuberant spirit of the Nintendo brand and the clean, modern environment of corporate headquarters,” says Mark Sanders, project director.

For all of the exterior signage, SC took the “racetrack” shape of Nintendo’s logo, which is associated with both the company and its products, and extruded it to create the profile of the signs.  “The shape of the logo is timeless,” says Billy Chen, project design director. “It will always look the same, no matter how advanced the games get.”

SC took cues from the design and graphic language of Nintendo’s products—such as game consoles and controllers—when designing the exterior signage program. For example, the arrows on the directional signs are similar to the arrows on the directional buttons of the controllers and the dot pattern on the signs resembles the venting on a console.

SC also wanted to be sure the system we designed would continue to serve Nintendo as its campus expands. By creating a comprehensive system now—even though this particular project included only a few campus structures—SC ensured that Nintendo already has all of the graphics and wayfinding components required for future expansion.

In addition to campus wayfinding, Studio SC worked on the parking garage. Since it’s the first stop for campus visitors, SC treated the garage as a front door to the building, and used it to introduce visitors to the graphics program.   “We saw this as an opportunity to make the parking garage a more welcoming, inviting place,” says Chen. “By using some fun and colorful graphics we were really able to energize the space.” Taking cues from Nintendo’s classic racing game, Mario Kart, SC designed brightly colored graphics for the garage that evoke the game, such as checkered racing flags.

Throughout the entire campus—from the parking garage to the walking paths to the character-themed quadrants in the main building—visitors and staff are treated to a thoughtfully designed graphics program that evokes the fun and innovation for which Nintendo is known.

Photo: Benjamin Benschneider.