How Wayfind­ing Can Help Improve Cam­pus Traf­fic — Iowa Cen­tral Case Study

The Iowa Cen­tral Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege (ICCC) is a com­mu­ni­ty col­lege locat­ed in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Wayfind­ing

After a major cam­pus expan­sion of mul­ti­ple new build­ing projects and a com­plete cam­pus re-design, ICC­C’s exist­ing sig­nage had become out­dat­ed and inef­fi­cient. And with a large per­cent­age of com­mut­ing stu­dents look­ing pri­mar­i­ly for assigned park­ing areas, the begin­ning of each school semes­ter was show­ing the lim­i­ta­tions of the wayfind­ing. The loop road serv­ing the cam­pus and also pro­vid­ing access to the park­ing areas had become a prob­lem­at­ic deci­sion point on the entrance dri­ve between the pub­lic street and the loop road which cre­at­ed major bottlenecks.

Our sign team pre­pared a wayfind­ing study and designed a new sig­nage mas­ter plan to bring out the school brand and col­ors, and cre­ate a uni­ver­sal look for the campus.

Con­trol­ling Traf­fic Flow with Signage

We were able to observe traf­fic flow and stack­ing, and with that infor­ma­tion, place a sign in the opti­mal loca­tion to pro­vide direc­tion, get vehi­cles sort­ed in their cor­rect lanes as they approach the inter­sec­tion, to help keep traf­fic moving.

The two large cam­pus gate­way signs were designed to hold an illu­mi­nat­ed, change­able bot­tom insert, a cus­tom ele­ment that the school request­ed for announc­ing the tem­po­rary and spe­cial events on cam­pus going on all year round that bring vis­i­tors, unfa­mil­iar with cam­pus, look­ing for spe­cif­ic build­ings and events. The fin­ished project also fea­tured change­able pan­els on all direc­tion­al signs, pedes­tri­an maps, and park­ing lot iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and can change and grow with the campus.

Lega­cy Series

The Lega­cy sign sys­tem was used as the basis of design result­ing in a con­tem­po­rary look that reflects school build­ings and col­ors. In par­tic­u­lar, an angled fin motif on sev­er­al of the build­ings was eas­i­ly incor­po­rat­ed into the sign design. At the main entrance, a selec­tion of back­lit pan­els with reoc­cur­ring school events was devel­oped which can be switched out by ICCC. The result is the abil­i­ty to update the sign to reflect cur­rent activ­i­ties while main­tain­ing a ​“per­ma­nent” look and the abil­i­ty to main­tain the signs as the cam­pus grows.