Kin­nick Sta­di­um: Sig­nage Com­pletes The Experience

One of the sig­na­ture out­door sig­nage ele­ments of the remod­el to the North End Zone of Kin­nick Sta­di­um was an enor­mous tiger­hawk emblem. The orig­i­nal design was a 22’high x 36’wide reverse chan­nel halo illu­mi­nat­ed (back­lit) alu­minum sign.

As a man­u­fac­tur­er, we bring rel­a­tive exper­tise and our fab­ri­ca­tors like to show their team spir­it on projects like this (right pic­ture: Jason stretch­ing a por­tion of the tiger hawk in his black and gold).

Our out­door sig­nage experts were con­cerned about hav­ing an alu­minum sign that large. Due to the size of the over­all logo, it was impos­si­ble to have a sin­gle sheet of alu­minum big enough to make the sign. Seam­ing the alu­minum was a pos­si­ble solu­tion, but that left poten­tial for light to leak between the seams of the face.

To get the look, reduce the weight, and bring costs down on install, we sug­gest­ed using Flex Face as it would allow for a one-piece face con­struc­tion. It also makes it pos­si­ble to illu­mi­nate the entire logo, not just cre­ate a halo. Chang­ing the illu­mi­na­tion also led to updat­ing the sta­di­um let­ters with a coor­di­nat­ing illu­mi­na­tion style.

With Design-Build projects, our team was around the table ear­ly and able to deliv­er a sta­di­um sign solu­tion that now serves as a bea­con to Hawk­eye fans, and ele­vates the look of the entire stadium. 

Box Seat­ing Donor Signs

With­in the sta­di­um, donors who buy or rent out­door box seats (also called Iron­men Box­es) enjoy pri­va­cy and more pro­tec­tion from the ele­ments dur­ing games. They’re also greet­ed with their names on the door. Lock­er room inspired let­ter­ing and box num­bers are installed on the brick wall near each iron­men box. Names of donors are hung direct­ly on the doors. 

Anoth­er addi­tion to the North End Zone remod­el is the pre­mi­um club lev­el, Ted Pacha Fam­i­ly Club. Between the two con­course lev­els the pre­mi­um club lev­el is accessed through a new sky­walk, ele­va­tors, and stairs. The club has its own con­ces­sions and restroom facilities.

In the club lev­el, guests see envi­ron­men­tal graph­ics of icon­ic moments in Iowa Hawk­eye foot­ball his­to­ry. These over­sized sil­i­cone edge graph­ics ener­gize the space, and they can be eas­i­ly updat­ed when the Hawkeyes have their next big moment.

Anoth­er eye-catch­ing sign in the club lev­el is the large tiger hawk near the stair­way. The design con­cept was to keep the look open, but to have it illu­mi­nat­ed with a stun­ning pat­tern. Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Neu­mann Mon­son, our team worked through sev­er­al prod­uct tests to final­ly devel­op the sign in clear acrylic with yel­low etch­ings that car­ry the sur­round­ing LED lights through the acrylic for a dynam­ic sta­di­um sign.