Form vs Func­tion: Sam­mons Finan­cial Group enjoys them both with on-brand archi­tec­tur­al signage.

Inspired by vin­tage bank teller win­dows, the design­ers at For­cade devel­oped sig­nage designs that car­ried a met­al grid pat­tern through­out Sam­mons Finan­cial Group’s exte­ri­or archi­tec­tur­al sig­nage and inte­ri­or ADA and Wayfind­ing signs. Then our team of pro­duc­tion design­ers, fab­ri­ca­tors, and installers col­lab­o­rat­ed to make the designs come to life.

Exte­ri­or illu­mi­nat­ed wayfind­ing sig­nage looks like it’s ele­vat­ed on a fab­ri­cat­ed steel cage base. This design pairs with inte­ri­or wayfind­ing signs that have a lay­er of wire mesh behind an acrylic sign. There is also a nod to this design rout­ed into the back­ground of signs through­out the building.

“Devel­op­ing a design off the page and dis­cussing how to bring the design­ers’ visions to life with our pro­duc­tion team is excit­ing,” says Pat Mesch­er, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er for Lat­i­tude Sig­nage Latimer Group. ​“Our team was able to val­ue engi­neer sev­er­al aspects of the sig­nage pack­age so that we could gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings for the client while also com­ply­ing with ele­gant design details. This project was also fea­tured in our Top 5 Out­door Signs of 2020.”

One exam­ple of val­ue engi­neer­ing was with room iden­ti­fi­er signs. Orig­i­nal­ly, the signs were to have a ribbed design rout­ed into a met­al sub­strate, which was expen­sive. Our sig­nage design and man­u­fac­tur­ing team was able to cre­ate the same high-end dimen­sion­al look by rout­ing the design on acrylic and paint­ing it to match the oth­er brand­ed signs. This prod­uct knowl­edge direct­ly impact­ed the bot­tom line while also stay­ing on design. 

“Anoth­er cre­ative solu­tion we sug­gest­ed to reduce costs was to apply a pat­terned translu­cent 3M vinyl that could be applied to glass walls for added pri­va­cy,” Mesch­er says. ​“This sim­ple solu­tion elim­i­nat­ed the need for cost­ly cus­tom glass installations.”

Work­ing from the orig­i­nal design our team came up with a cre­ative way to build infor­ma­tion­al and illu­mi­nat­ed kiosks in the lob­by of the build­ing that com­pan­ion the large recep­tion logo behind the check-in desk. 

The kiosks both con­vey brand­ing sta­t­i­cal­ly and dynam­i­cal­ly. The Sam­mons mes­sag­ing and sto­ry appear on update­able inter­ac­tive screens while the kiosks instill the brand with sta­t­ic ele­ments too. Cus­tom mill­work oak kiosks fea­ture a rout­ed logo and dig­i­tal screens for announce­ments and cor­po­rate col­lat­er­al. The kiosks are topped with translu­cent plex­i­glass over LED light­ing. The effect is stun­ning, and the mate­r­i­al is light­weight enough that the elec­tri­cal ele­ments can be eas­i­ly accessed for future maintenance.