Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library
The Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Libraries (CHPL) are a series of 41 library branches that span across the greater Cincinnati region of Southwest Ohio. During my co-op with MSA Design, our team conducted a full scale audit of each regional branch’s exterior signage and wayfinding systems with the ultimate goal of reworking the current system to improve the overall user wayfinding experience.
I was fortunate to work with the team at MSA on the location audit as well as the first rounds of signage replacement. Currently, The Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Libraries have installed new landmark signs at 9 regional branches. Successive rounds of signage updates are slated and will be executed by CHPL and the MSA team, with the ultimate goal of adoption at all locations.
Existing Signage
To begin, our team conducted a full scale audit of the existing wayfinding and signage conditions at 30 of the 41 library branches. In order to gauge the urgency of each branch’s conditions, we created a priority system based on factors such as visibility and accessibility.
Though the new signage request came from the library’s recent rebrand, our team found that the existing signage was extremely weathered and dilapidated. This negatively affected the sign’s visibility—making it especially ineffective. Per request of the team at CHPL, our team developed concepts with the word “LIBRARY” situated at the top, giving it more prominence and visibility from afar.
Concept Exploration
Initial system developments explored unique ways to express CHPL’s brand and the surrounding communities that make up its user groups. A concept of “experience clusters” drew inspiration from the discovery that takes place at CHPL, while other concepts called upon Cincinnati’s distinct geography.
Our team landed on an abstract concept that embraces the Library’s motto: for minds of all kinds. Each branch boasts a unique shape element and color—varying based on its distance from the downtown main branch—so as to express the library’s radiating personality and ongoing mission of connecting people with the world of ideas and information.