Through much of the previous century, the wooden piers that dotted the shoreline of Seattle’s Lake Union supported shipbuilding and other marine industrial activity. Renovation of this site at the south end of the lake aimed to celebrate this past, while also revitalizing a group of aging retail buildings and encouraging pedestrian flow among businesses, along lakefront promenades, and along the public trail that traverses the property.

Large timber elements throughout the site reference its past, and we employed this material language in our signage design, along with an identity alluding to vessels lined up along a pier, and a luminous palette reflecting the site’s new vitality.

My efforts in this project involved collaborating on signage design strategy, expanding this strategy to new sign types, creating all technical drawings and plans for location, fabrication, installation, and artwork, and submittal reviews.