Happy Holidays from Studio SC

We’ve recently had our own Santa’s workshop in our office building, where we’ve been creating a set of Studio SC Cornhole boards.

If you’re not from the Midwest, you may be wondering what in the world we’re talking about. Allow us to enlighten you:

Cornhole or Corn Toss is similar to horseshoes except you use wooden boxes called cornhole platforms and corn bags instead of horseshoes and metal stakes. Contestants take turns pitching their corn bags at the cornhole platform until a contestant reaches the score of 21 points. A corn bag in the hole scores 3 points, while one on the platform scores 1 point.

(via the American Cornhole Association, which counts our own Cory Binau as one of its 34,000 members.)

Cory and Faith, native Ohioans, introduced the rest of us to the game this summer, and we were hooked. We decided a set of homemade boards would be a fun addition to the office and a great Christmas present for Mark and Billy.

We wanted the design to be simple, highlight the natural wood of the boards, and jive with Studio SC’s brand colors of white, black, and grey. We decided to stain the boards to let the natural wood take center stage. To bring in the brand, we’d paint a white border around the edges and the hole, include Studio SC’s logo, and create a set of bags in both black and white.

Cory started building the boards in October and then brought them in to the office, where we set up a makeshift art studio in the basement. Armed with wood stain, white paint, painter’s tape, brushes, Exacto knives, and vinyl stencils, we logged several cold and clandestine hours, sharing stories and jamming to KEXP.

After a few months of work, we surprised Mark and Billy with the boards yesterday morning. So if you’re ever up for a game of Cornhole—whether to show off your skills or just learn the game—stop on by!

Happy Holidays from all of us at Studio SC, we hope you’re having a fun and festive season!

Sign Prototyping at Seattle Children’s

After working on the Seattle Children’s Hospital project for over a year, we’ve finally had a chance to see some of our signs in the environment.

We worked with Image Mill, a local fabricator, to produce temporary signs to test for legibility, color, consistency, size, cap height, and clarity. The signs were placed in a low-traffic area of the hospital for a single test day.  This allowed the design team to see how the signs looked at full size in the environment and provided doctors and patient-families an opportunity to experience the wayfinding paths and offer feedback.

This process of testing, feedback, and streamlining is part of Continuous Performance Improvement, an efficiency strategy that Children’s employs. CPI is a theory of customer-focused and efficiency-minded principals—inspired by the Toyota Way—geared toward eliminating waste and increasing value to customers through continuous small improvements.

“Children’s CPI culture means that the they are fully engaged in the design process,” says Mark Sanders, project director. “Hospital leaders see a strong wayfinding program as a significant benefit to families, hospital staff, and the bottom line.”

The overall response within the hospital was extremely positive, says Project Manager Cynthia Hall. “The signs were really well received,” she says. “We learned a lot about how the signs function in the environment and how the users interact with them, all of which will be helpful as we further develop designs and move into fabrication.”

As we work to refine the signage package for both the Building Hope expansion and the campus master plan, we’re also partnering with a team of illustrators, Oakland, CA-based Lab Partners, to create artwork that will help identify each zone of the hospital and reinforce the wayfinding program. The artwork they’ve created thus far is a wonderful combination of nature and nurturing elements that reflect Children’s Pacific Northwest identity.

Husky Pride at UW’s Alumni Commons

We’ve already introduced you to the graphics program in the UW’s new Alumni Commons building. Now that it has been open for a little more than a month, we want to give you a more in-depth tour of the new space.

The goal of the Commons is to celebrate “Husky Pride”—the pride felt by all those who have been involved with the University since it was founded in 1861. “Each aspect of the program speaks to something the University values, from the members of its community to the philosophies that drive its progress to the environment in which it exists,” says designer Faith Berry.

A backlit glowing gold wall in the common area features routed typographic statements of values and philosophies that the University has built upon.  A People Wall, filled with photographs and quotes of the UW community, is the focal point of the conference room. This wall highlights the personal connections people have with the University, and the impact the school has had on their lives.

To bring a piece of the surrounding environment inside, a large graphic of Mount Rainier fills a wall at the end of a long corridor, mimicking the iconic view of the mountain that’s visible from the UW quad. From afar, the graphic simply looks like a purple half-tone image of the iconic mountain. But up close, it’s clear that the image is actually composed of a series of textural W’s in UW’s brand mark.

The graphics program also includes a timeline wall, which is still in development. This wall serves as a record of specific successes in UW’s history. Its non-linear nature allows it to be easily updated to highlight future achievements.

As the University of Washington celebrates its sesquicentennial this year, the new Alumni Commons building serves as an elegant and energetic tribute to the accomplishments of the UW’s past 150 years and looks proudly toward its future.

Images taken by Ben Benschenider (click an image to view larger). 

UW Baseball Team Building: Go Purple. Be Gold.

The new Husky Ballpark Team Building at the University of Washington will be the home off the field for UW Baseball. A design-build project with SRG Partnership and Bayley Construction, the building will feature a simple, but impactful, graphics program that focuses on the fundamentals of baseball.

The motto of the UW Athletics Program is “Go Purple. Be Gold.” Drawing from this, we created what designer Faith Berry calls a “back-to-basics” graphics program. “The idea is to take a classic approach to iconize the baseball program and focus on the fundamental things that make the club great,” she says.

When people enter the lobby of the Team Building, they’re surrounded by golden, towering graphics that span two floors, immortalizing the program’s success. At eye level, life-sized images characterize the mechanics of the game, like the delivery of a pitch or a power swing.

In a nod to the program’s history, the meeting room, where alumni and potential donors will view games, features a large image of an early 1900s pitching staff warming up before a game. A Legacy Panel overlays the image, highlighting memorable games, records set, and players who’ve made it to the big leagues. This interchangeable panel system can be easily updated to include future successes.

In the locker room, inspirational quotes (provided by Head Coach Lindsay Meggs) line the purple drop soffit in the ceiling, and a series of motivational statements look toward the goal at the end of the season: a trip to the College World Series. Lockers are also personalized for each player and include a portrait image and a shot of them in action on the field.

These locker room graphics serve as a useful recruiting tool for the school. By highlighting the players, the team makes it clear that they treat them like professionals and they value each player’s contributions. The aspirational statements, which are integrated into the environment, reiterate to recruits that UW believes in the strength of its program and that it takes seriously the goal of getting to the College World Series.

The new Husky Ballpark Team Building is just one aspect of the university’s plan to energize Husky Baseball. The graphics in the space will connect players, coaches, and recruits with the history of the program and help inspire them on their path to a championship future.

Images: Renderings of the exterior, stairway, meeting room, and locker room graphics. Click on the images to view larger versions.

SOUTHERN UTE CULTURAL CENTER AND MUSEUM

This spring, the Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum will open in Ignacio, Colorado. We designed the environmental graphics and wayfinding signage program for the new building—a 51,000-square-foot structure honoring the history, culture, and language of the Southern Ute people.

The cultural center and museum, designed by Jones & Jones Architects, sits on the tribe’s Southwestern Colorado reservation. The building design recalls the Southern Utes’ culture and history: a welcome gallery is housed in a conical structure that’s evocative of traditional tribal homes, flanked by two wings whose sloped rooftops reflect the sacred symbol of the eagle. We extended these architectural cues to our design for the environmental graphics and the interior and exterior wayfinding signs.

Large concrete markers throughout the campus feature etched typographic directional information, guiding visitors around the space and creating a connection with the environment. Post-and-panel signs evoke the portable structures built by the nomadic Southern Utes.

To create a sense of “place,” the Ute language is incorporated into the signage, serving as a constant reminder that the center is a space to celebrate the Southern Ute culture. The directional and identification signs, along with the concrete markers, feature both English and Ute. Conversational phrases or questions—such as “Do you speak Ute?”—appear throughout the building as a way to create connections between people and the environment.

Tribal history and culture, such as traditional clothing styles, is referenced in custom-designed symbols that appear on the signage. To highlight beadwork—a significant part of Southern Ute culture—and encourage the tribe to interact with and personalize the environment, room ID signs feature removable tray inserts where students and other tribe members can display beadwork they’ve created. 

SC’s goal was to create an integrated and meaningful signage and graphics program that would enhance the building’s function as both a learning center for visitors and a cultural touchpoint for tribe members, says Design Director Billy Chen.

“The graphics and signage program nicely complements the complex architecture of the building,” says Chen. “The result is a really immersive experience that, with the help of our environmental graphics program, celebrates the culture and history of the Southern Ute tribe.”