Between Chicago and Milwaukee sits Racine, Wisconsin, the Kringle capital of the world, home to S.C. Johnson headquarters, Wisconsin’s largest beach, and world-class museums. In an effort to build awareness of Racine and help connect visitors to the city and its vast amount of visitor destinations, the city of Racine hired Corbin Design in 2015 to develop and design a city wayfinding program.
Because visitors have to travel more than 10 miles from the highway to reach downtown Racine, traversing several other communities along the way, it was imperative to create a region-wide plan that not only connected visitors to the city of Racine but also the communities within Greater Racine. To do so, a Core Team made up of various community representatives worked closely to create a comprehensive system that represents the entire region and benefits each of the communities.
The final aesthetic of the wayfinding signage design took inspiration from some of the region’s prairie-style architecture as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s local works. It is flexible enough to allow for each community to uniquely identify itself with a custom footer/color, while retaining the same shape and sign elements throughout the entire program.