Burge Hall: Bring­ing Mod­ern Cus­tom Sign Design to Campus

Col­lege dor­mi­to­ries aren’t the insti­tu­tion­al build­ings we may remem­ber. At the Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa, Burge Hall is a small com­mu­ni­ty tucked with­in the larg­er cam­pus land­scape. In addi­tion to hous­ing more than 900 res­i­dents, it also hosts a mar­ket­place and a con­ve­nience store. 

Notice we didn’t say cafe­te­ria. The Burge Mar­ket Place is more like a food court offer­ing nine dif­fer­ent sta­tions with a vari­ety of foods, includ­ing made-to-order items. This loca­tion also serves a vari­ety of soups, fresh­ly baked bread, and spe­cial­ty rotis­serie meats. There’s noth­ing old school about this build­ing from the 1950s.

The entrance to Burge Mar­ket Place is just as sur­pris­ing as its menu. Stretched across a curved tex­tured tile wall is cus­tom LED signage. 

Expe­ri­en­tial Design Signage

The long curved wall lead­ing to the Burge Hall Mar­ket Place was a design chal­lenge, but when the build­ing was updat­ed the uni­ver­si­ty want­ed to ele­vate the look with a more mod­ern inte­ri­or design. 

Pre­cise mea­sure­ments and test­ing sig­nage designs made it pos­si­ble to wrap the long sign around a tight cor­ner and to mim­ic the shape of the curved wall. 

The let­ters are cus­tom formed in acrylic and lit from behind. This stun­ning LED sig­nage piece cre­ates a halo effect that adds dra­ma to this entrance area. 

Ele­vate Sig­nage Design

There’s no rule that says his­tor­i­cal build­ings or insti­tu­tions have to look and feel like they did gen­er­a­tions ago. 

If you need help rethink­ing how mod­ern inte­ri­or design could be brought into your next ren­o­va­tion project, reach out to any of our sig­nage design experts.

Have ques­tions about this project specif­i­cal­ly? Reach out to Bryce Carl­son, our East­ern Iowa Sign Expert.