Town of Amherst: Wayfinding & Identity
Services
Identity Design
Composing a distinct and practical identity system with style guidelines and collateral templates.
Wayfinding
A comprehensive system for use along roadways to guide drivers and pedestrians to parking and sites of interest.
The town of Amherst is a relatively small rural community and home to Massachusetts' flagship state university campus. Somehow most folks were unaware of the vibrant bohemian downtown just up the street.
Beginning in 2017, I began work with the Town of Amherst to develop a comprehensive wayfinding system to address this problem: direct traffic to downtown businesses and local sites of interest. This process involved city staff, public forums, and mediation with vendors.
The design scheme for the system was so well-received that the town elected to have their municipal identity revised to coordinate. We replaced the existing town seal - which was obscure and unfavorable - with the older, more iconic shield used on the signage, and supplemented it with a more distinguished and functional system of fonts and colors.
A new project is underway now to extend this identity and wayfinding system to the town's expansive network of conservation and recreation properties.