Walk This Way for Sum­mer Fun: Imag­ine Iowa Great Lakes Out­door Pedes­tri­an Signage

Inspired by the icon­ic arched prom­e­nade that leads vis­i­tors to Arnold’s Park, 818 team designed a com­pre­hen­sive sig­nage pack­age that emu­lates the promenade’s arched archi­tec­ture and hon­ors the local community. 

“Lat­i­tude brought our sig­nage and wayfind­ing designs to life,” says Abel. ​“Their excel­lent crafts­man­ship and atten­tion to the details real­ly helped show­case the artis­tic ele­ments of the signs and allowed for a final prod­uct that stands out visu­al­ly. We know every time we work with Lat­i­tude, we can expect not only high qual­i­ty fab­ri­ca­tion, but a deter­mi­na­tion to col­lab­o­rate and align with the desired design intent.”

Whether guests arrive by car, bike, or on foot, there are charm­ing signs to lead them through­out the his­toric water­side park. There are also dig­i­tal­ly-print­ed inter­pre­tive signs over­look­ing the lake and green spaces that hon­or donors and pro­vide infor­ma­tion on native plantings. 

“We were thrilled to play a part in revi­tal­iz­ing this space for the com­mu­ni­ty,” says Justin Hart, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er for Lat­i­tude Sig­nage Latimer Group. ​“See­ing beau­ti­ful­ly designed signs as you walk along the lake­front gives the space feel­ing of per­ma­nence and impor­tance. It sig­nals to guests that this small-town com­mu­ni­ty has ral­lied around this place as a pre­mier vaca­tion destination.” 

To accom­plish this project, our sig­nage experts worked side-by-side with the 818 design team. Adding signs to an exist­ing envi­ron­ment is very dif­fer­ent than plan­ning sig­nage for a new build­ing. ​“You can’t just plot things on a plan and hope it works,” Hart says. ​“There may be a water foun­tain or a park bench that’s not list­ed on the offi­cial plans. So we lit­er­al­ly walked the area togeth­er and marked the phys­i­cal loca­tion of where every sign would be installed,” Hart says. This pre­cise atten­tion to detail iden­ti­fied the best loca­tion for the sig­nage and pre­vent­ed any poten­tial instal­la­tion issues.

The teams also talked through every detail of pro­duc­tion, includ­ing what mate­ri­als and instal­la­tion styles would pro­duce the best results and be most cost-effec­tive. ​“Sug­ges­tions such as adding reflec­tive vinyl to a sign near the park­ing lot and pro­vid­ing a series of options for the posts led to sig­nage solu­tions that hit the mark for the client and reduced costs.” In the end, the signs ele­vate the look of this icon­ic Iowa des­ti­na­tion and wel­come a new gen­er­a­tion to make mem­o­ries at Lake Okoboji.