Work/North Light
North Light
Identity and wayfinding for a coastal museum.
- Client
- North Light Museum, Maine
- Role
- Brand & Environmental Design
- Discipline
- Identity · Wayfinding
- Timeline
- 6 months
- Year
- 2024
Tools
Illustrator · Figma · InDesign
[ 01 ] The brief
A complete identity, wayfinding and exhibition graphics system for a small coastal museum. The brand had to survive salt air, fog, and a budget that wouldn't fund a single neon sign.
The museum's original signage was illegible in fog and faded after two seasons. Visitors routinely missed the entrance. The brand felt borrowed from a stock template.
[ 02 ] Approach
- 01
Started with a study of nineteenth-century maritime signal flags. The vocabulary already existed; it just needed a contemporary voice.
- 02
Designed a single-weight display face cut from a stencil grid, so any sign could be repainted by the maintenance team without a designer.
- 03
Picked a palette that held up against grey weather: bone, slate, vermillion. Tested every colour on-site in three different lights.
[ 03 ] Selected screens
FIG. 01
Entrance signage
[ 04 ] Decisions
Stencil over print
Every wayfinding mark is a stencil. Maintenance staff repaint the museum twice a year without losing the system.
Vermillion as a beacon
The accent only appears at decision points — entrances, junctions, donation boxes. The eye learns it within minutes.
Weatherproof typography
Letterforms were thickened by 8% to account for fog scatter, after a week of on-site legibility tests.
[ 05 ] Outcomes
- 01
Visitor numbers grew 38% in the first season after launch.
- 02
Wayfinding complaints in the visitor book dropped to zero.
- 03
AIGA Eye on Design highlighted the project as a case study in 2024.
[ 06 ] Adjacent work
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Field Notes Quarterly