Project HIRED Signage
The first of four pieces I designed as a volunteer for Project HIRED, a Californian nonprofit that helps disabled job seekers build vocational skills. Measuring 18 inches wide and 24 inches tall, this sign will be placed on the door to their office so clients would know they were in the right location. The photos featured in the final version were provided by Project HIRED staff while the logo and branding guide were provided by Project HIRED staff.
All of the designs in this series started as four thumbnails drawn by hand. These are a quick way to convey to both myself and the client how the information they want to display will be arranged. A large number of traffic going in and out of the office are disabled people so the graphic would need to be simple in order to accommodate the visually impaired. This sign in particular would require the most straight forward and simple design since it would be the audience’s first impression as they arrive at the door.
This is the just one of many work in progress samples that were taken during the production of this sign. On the other pieces in this series, the tagline “Career Consulting & More for Individuals with Disabilities” is the same size as the logo. If I were to also size the tagline in that way, the text could be too small for a disabled person to read so I made it wider than the logo. The background photo is also blurred so that it does not distract too much from the text. At this point in in the process there was still a lot that needed to be fixed, like the contrast between the text and background for better legibility.
This sign went through more iterations than all three of the other pieces combined, which is why the final result pictured here is so radically different from the work in progress sample. I inverted the brightness of the text and background, with the text now being light and background being dark. The purpose of this was to increase the contrast for easier accessibility. I also changed the two bottom images in the background to photos of disabled individuals that worked with Project Hired in the past. It was important to include these types of photos so that when they disabled people come into the office, they would see people like them being represented through Project HIRED’s past successes.
