Sig­nage To Hon­or Stars at North­Star Foundation

North Omaha’s school-aged boys, tra­di­tion­al­ly beset by sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers to aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess, have found a path at North­Star. With after-school pro­gram­ming that offers aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port, sports leagues, and career train­ing, boys are pre­pared for life after graduation. 

The North­Star cam­pus recent­ly under­went a three-phase expan­sion that includes a field­house, class­rooms, art stu­dio, a high ropes course, and much more. Dur­ing this expan­sion, North­Star worked with Lat­i­tude Sig­nage Latimer Group to devel­op a donor recog­ni­tion wall and a pho­to wall to rec­og­nize grad­u­ates from the program. 

Cre­ative Pho­to Wall Signage

“When the North­Star Foun­da­tion approached us to design a pho­to wall hon­or­ing their grad­u­ates we want­ed to avoid a basic grid of pho­tos and come up with a dis­play method to allow their grad­u­ates’ por­traits to real­ly shine,” says Andrej Stein­bergs, Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design­er.

Inspired by the star and col­ors in the North­Star logo, Stein­bergs cre­at­ed a pho­to wall that has a patri­ot­ic feel with stars and stripes. ​“We came with the approach of hav­ing the stripes break the plane of the wall and curve out­ward much like a flag wav­ing in the wind,” Stein­bergs says.

Vinyl stars serve as a place­hold­er for future grad­u­ates. When a graduate’s por­trait is added to the dis­play in an acrylic win­dow frame, they cov­er up one of the stars. ​“In a sense, they become a star,” Stein­bergs says. 

Inno­v­a­tive Donor Wall Signage

The suc­cess of the North­Star pro­gram is due in large part to the gen­er­ous donors who keep invest­ing in the North Oma­ha com­mu­ni­ty. The donor recog­ni­tion wall was a design chal­lenge for Stein­bergs because the can­vas for the donor wall was a glass wall made of sev­en nar­row glass pan­els. To cre­ate a cohe­sive design, Stein­bergs opt­ed for a three-dimen­sion­al approach.

“We want­ed to cre­ate a donor recog­ni­tion dis­play with some dimen­sion­al stripes that would allow for the faces of the signs to project just beyond the mul­lions that divid­ed the win­dow pan­els,” says Stein­bergs. ​“Notch­es were cut into each dimen­sion­al stripe which allowed for them to fit over and be almost flush with the face of the mul­lions. This, along with dig­i­tal­ly print­ed translu­cent vinyl accent stripes cre­at­ed a nice effect on the glass and gave the com­po­si­tion some movement.”

Donor names were cre­at­ed with com­put­er cut white vinyl which con­trasts nice­ly with the blue and faux-brushed met­al of the lam­i­nates. Since the donor wall is attached to a glass wall, Stein­bergs includ­ed a lit­tle some­thing extra for the peo­ple inside the room. ​“No one wants to look at the blank back­side of a sign, so we place inspi­ra­tional quotes on the side of the sign that faces the read­ing room,” says Steinbergs.

Archi­tec­tur­al Sig­nage Materials

Both projects were fab­ri­cat­ed using wood, MDF and high-pres­sure blue and faux-met­al lam­i­nates which echoed North­Star’s col­or palette. They were cho­sen for their dura­bil­i­ty as well as their strik­ing fin­ish­es. ​“Bring­ing dimen­sion to these signs makes them feel more thought­ful and impor­tant,” Stein­bergs says. ​“These are not just plaques thrown on a wall to say thanks or good job. Espe­cial­ly for the boys, this sig­nage says, ​‘You are impor­tant. And when you work hard to grad­u­ate your pho­to is going to be put in a place of honor.’”

Sig­nage Honors

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Work­ing to con­vey a spe­cial mes­sage to hon­or indi­vid­u­als? We’d be hon­ored to help, reach out to any of our sig­nage experts today.