Does your town or city have a sense of arrival or a distinctive sense of place?

And what image does your community want to visually and thematically shape and position?

Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, these questions are being asked by communities wanting to long-term enhance and invigorate their town center or downtown with increased residents, commerce and tourism.

Underscoring a pride of place, both the public and private sectors are seeing the benefit of making resources available to build up a civic brand and identity while reinforcing it with better signage, wayfinding elements and related social media.

MDI consultant Mark Favermann of Favermann Design will use interactive exercises and in-depth presentations to illustrate the various elements that enable branding and wayfinding. Best practices will be stressed in regard to community image building, descriptive logo or logotype creation, wayfinding structures, appropriate fonts, letter size, colors and fabrication methods. As these elements are part of the streetscape, they will be visually and organizationally presented in the context of a holistic approach to street furniture, street hardware, social media and even public art.

Case studies of many Massachusetts communities will be presented along with current approaches to digital wayfinding and the use of public art as orientational cues and strategic placemaking elements.

This workshop will include current tools and best practices to enable participants to plan for projects and programs in their own communities.

There is no cost to attend this workshop.

A light lunch will be served.

Parking:

The UMASS Center is in Tower Square with a parking garage.

At the garage entrance (Bridge Street, left side only) the lane will lead you to the gate and machine. If the gate is up, you can just drive through. If the gate is down the machine provides a blue ticket which you have to keep. Show our receptionist the blue ticket and our receptionist will provide a second ticket (yellow). Therefore, you will need both tickets and a $5 payment upon exiting. Unless the gate was up, then you just need the yellow one and the $5 and to press the help button upon exiting to let the garage staff know the gate was up when you entered.

Postponed to April 18: What is Community Branding & Wayfinding?