How Apartment Signage Design Can Make or Break Your Commercial Investment
Published on: September 26, 2019
How can you attract new tenants and lower turnover in your residential apartment properties? For one thing, people need to feel connected to the place so that they want to live there. Branding that inspires that sense of connection not only gets the attention of potential tenants, but it also causes current tenants to move less often.
By branding your apartment signage design to give a welcoming, unified sense of place, you can help tenants feel right at home—and keep your bottom-line in the black.
Great Apartment Signage Design Gets Results
All great apartment signage design shares the same key elements. It’s highly functional, it’s in sync with the target demographic’s brand vision, and complements the architectural style. When all of these elements align, the proof is in the results successful signage gets. Here are some multi-family residential complexes that adopted top-notch apartment signage design to achieve a sense of place that keeps tenants engaged.
Odeon
Signage should create an experience in line with your marketing strategy. Many multi-family residential units take the approach of offering attractive amenities, such as pools, gyms, spas, entertainment areas or dog parks. All of these will require branded signage to give the complex a more resort-like feel.
When an iconic, turn-of-the-century commercial building transitioned to house both high-end lofts and mixed-use retail, total signage rebranding was needed. They brought in a top San Francisco based signage design firm to help—starting with a new name, ODEON. The name itself, universally-recognized as a city’s cultural heart, set the stage for fresh branding, marketing and, of course, apartment signage design.
Now the ODEON building mixes it’s historic past with a fresh image, creating a unique sense of place for tenants near the center of infamous Union Square and the city’s entertainment and retail core.
Alta Laguna
Wayfinding and easy-to-understand signage are critical both for residents and visitors, as modern multi-family apartments often have multiple buildings. When one of San Francisco’s biggest residential communities, Alta Laguna, needed to implement a new wayfinding program for the 330-unit complex with public parks and other amenities, they started with a Sign Profile AnalysisTM.
This allowed the signage design firm to move ahead with a branded wayfinding program throughout the interior, exterior, and parking garage that was in alignment with both the goals and budget. The resulting apartment signage design tied together amenities across an entire city block, giving the property a cohesive look and feel that is easy to navigate. No matter where you go within Alta Laguna now, you know you’re part of a thriving active community.
Avalon Dublin Station
Quality is important when you have a new multi-family residential complex with a wave of first-time residents. Signage needs to be durable and long-lasting to remain fresh as new phases are added to the development. And, since apartment leases are shorter term, there’s a greater need to frequently upgrade and refresh signage to keep the branded feel alive for tenants.
Avalon Dublin Station, a luxurious complex highly focused on delivering an upscale lifestyle, understood the demand for quality when they developed a comprehensive Master Signage Program for their 400-unit building with ground-level retail. The program encompassed building identification, interior and exterior wayfinding, parking signage, and retail identification. All elements were created and installed with quality in mind. The result is signage that not only meets exacting standards but gives residents the sleek, modern experience they demand.
Retain Good Tenants and Lower Turnover With Compelling Apartment Signage Design
If your multi-family residential complex is experiencing low demand or high turnover, try investing in branded architectural signage. By adding functional signage that provides visual interest and complements the architectural style, you achieve a unified, branded sense of place throughout all interior and exterior spaces. For the easiest implementation, you’ll want to partner with a signage design firm who can see the project through from idea to implementation and installation. After all, your goal is creative, functional signs that residents will love— every time they walk by.
Dickson Keyser, GNU Group’s Director of Design, is the firm’s resident expert when it comes to melding pragmatic solutions with creative flair. He provides direction for all our design teams and manages solutions for the firm’s branding, environmental graphics, wayfinding, and print communications programs. Dickson holds a BA in Graphic Design & Speech Communication from Humboldt State University and has led GNU Group’s design team for more than a decade.
