Build­ing With a Brand: Cor­po­rate sig­nage and his­to­ry wall at new head­quar­ters inspired by Car­son Group’s brand.

How do you con­nect a build­ing to a brand?

How do you use sig­nage to con­nect a brand with the building?

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Car­son Group and Tetrad Prop­er­ty Group, our sign team cre­at­ed an enor­mous illu­mi­nat­ed exte­ri­or sign that wel­comes employ­ees and clients to the new head­quar­ters. Recep­tion sig­nage includes a dimen­sion­al logo installed on a tex­tured wall in the lob­by for a sleek mod­ern look. Through­out the build­ing, the angu­lar shape of the logo is inter­pret­ed in a num­ber of ways. 

Frost­ed vinyl win­dow cov­er­ings with lin­ear cutouts add style and enhance the pri­va­cy of meet­ing rooms, offices, and shared spaces. ADA room sig­nage has space for a name­plate on the bot­tom and a lay­ered chevron pat­tern that match­es with the brand col­ors of each area with­in the Car­son Group: Car­son Wealth, Car­son Coach­ing, and Car­son Partners.

How do you make a his­to­ry wall come to life?

For Car­son Group, they want­ed a dynam­ic way to share their lega­cy with every­one who walked into their head­quar­ters in Oma­ha, Nebras­ka. The solu­tion, a vibrant mul­ti-lay­ered his­to­ry wall that blurs the line between art and infor­ma­tive signage.

“For the over­all look, I was inspired by the Car­son Group logo and the bold and dra­mat­ic look of their new build­ing,” says Andrej Stein­bergs, EGD/​Production Design­er. ​“I want­ed to cre­ate a dimen­sion­al pres­ence for impact so I decon­struct­ed their logo and used its shape as the build­ing blocks that pro­trud­ed from the wall. Five pods were cre­at­ed, each high­light­ing a decade or major mile­stone. The angu­lar shapes were also used to crop the pho­to­graph­ic con­tent on each pod. Translu­cent pan­els were used to car­ry ver­biage and more photos.” 

Beyond the col­ors and sto­ry­telling style, it’s the details that count. The addi­tion of the LED light­ing details made a big impact. ​“There was just basic over­head light­ing in this area,” says Erin Carey, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er, Oma­ha, NE. ​“The LED light­ing draws peo­ple into the dis­play, enhances the dimen­sion­al­i­ty of the wall pan­els, and real­ly gives the space a wow factor.”

“Orig­i­nal­ly this area wasn’t wired for an illu­mi­nat­ed sign,” says Katie Gunia, Account Man­ag­er for Lat­i­tude. ​“We worked with the prop­er­ty man­age­ment team to update elec­tri­cal in order to sup­port this dis­tinc­tive his­to­ry sign.”

How do you keep sig­nage on schedule?

Col­lab­o­ra­tion was key to this project. ​“We met reg­u­lar­ly with indi­vid­u­als from Tetrad, the devel­op­er, and Car­son Group. Com­mu­ni­cat­ing reg­u­lar­ly helped us review designs and mate­r­i­al sam­ples to make deci­sions quick­ly so we could get the sig­nage into pro­duc­tion and installed on time,” says Gunia. ​“Final­iz­ing sig­nage always takes longer than one might think. With so many mov­ing parts, meet­ing reg­u­lar­ly helped the project stay on track with the dead­line and allowed Car­son Group to be part of each step of the sign design process.”

Car­son Group prides itself on offer­ing clients a holis­tic approach to finan­cial plan­ning. Now every­one who steps foot in their build­ing can feel the brand and learn the his­to­ry of their unique approach that start­ed near­ly 40 years ago with Ron Car­son, and where the com­pa­ny is poised to go in the future.