This week, local community organizers and public officials will take a big step toward making it hard to get lost in Tacoma. Even better, Tacoma’s wayfinding sign project may help visitors and residents find some of the cool stuff.



Truth is, Tacoma already has a few wayfinding signs. But so much has happened since they were placed, a couple of local upstarts decided to push the issue to the fore. Downtown Merchant Group President Patricia Lecy Davis and then Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber Metropolitan Development Director Paul Ellis managed to secure some money to get the ball rolling in 2006. With funding provided by the New Tacoma Neighborhood Council, local stakeholders enlisted help with design, and local politicians were asked to open their purses.



After a bunch of hard work, and the completion of a design concept, city officials indicated to Davis that the project was worthy of putting on the next biennial budget. Davis says that the project will help Tacoma realize its dream of becoming a place where people want to visit, enjoy, and spend money.



“As a tourist, it’s hard enough to find your way into downtown, let alone what to do, where to park or where to go,” she says.



During the past year, people working toward developing signs for downtown learned that Rusty George Design was working on a similar project to help people find out what to do and where to go on Tacoma’s waterfront. That snafu was quickly corrected, however, when the two efforts were joined. A few negotiations later, Rusty George Design was put in charge of designing the whole shebang, and efforts began to create a cohesive design standard that would help tie the projects and the regions together.



Rusty George Creative Director Ryan Meline was reluctant to prematurely unveil the group’s vision for the signs, but he was willing to talk about the importance of uniformity and the value of cooperation between downtown stakeholders.



“It’s part of a community’s job to make it easier on people who aren’t from here,” he says. “By keeping things consistent, people can be in one place and see one sign, then travel to another place and know they are still in the same system.”



Some community interests have butted heads over design elements, placement, icons and other signifiers, hoping that signs will reflect the character of their particular neighborhood or organization. There has been contention, for example, about what to put on signs near the University of Washington Tacoma. Do we call it the Museum District? Maybe the University District? How about the Convention District?



Meline and other local experts hope to convince local stakeholders that the stacks of reports mentioning the supreme importance of uniformity among urban sign systems are valid. The Cooperative Research Center for Construction Innovation is among dozens of urban planning organizations that consider uniformity a top priority. Other key aspects include eligibility, which means no grunge or old English fonts, and careful consideration of location. Within those bounds exists the challenge of working out a thousand or so remaining details.



“You can get down to details like whether or not arrows should have a shaft,” says Meline. “We’ve been involved in things where there are a lot of departments involved, and everybody wants their department in one way, and all together it doesn’t end up so cohesive. Wayfinding is all about finding your way, and less about identifying the particular zeitgeist of a particular community. This may not end up as exactly what everyone wanted.” 



Want to learn more? Attend a public meeting where preliminary plans and design will be discussed. It happens today.



[Tacoma Municipal Building, Thursday, July 17, 5 p.m., Room 248, 733 Market St., Tacoma]