CIVIC CENTER TRANSIT DISTRICT PLAN: Identity/Branding and Wayfinding

downtown Denver’s unique NW / SE grid serves to brand the Civic Center Station realm and facilitates wayfinding.

Branding and wayfinding is a vital part of the Plan’s mission to establish a long-term vision for a revitalized urban transportation hub and an enhanced downtown neighborhood district.

Celebrating Denver’s diagonal axis grid—its intersection at Civic Center Station—creates opportunities to orient bus riders, pedestrians and bicyclists, to Downtown and the State Capitol as well as facilitate wayfinding to Civic Center Park and Uptown, Capitol Hill, and Golden Triangle destinations. Given the world-class cultural institutions within the realm, wayfinding could be enhanced by signs as “artist canvas.”

Designating the diverse neighborhoods within the Realm with a distinctive color palette offers the opportunity to orient and foster clear wayfinding at Civic Center Station and into destinations in the Realm axes. A suite of branding elements: iconic image and neighborhood colors palette integrates into signs, pedestrian crosswalks, and art/sculpture—to create beacons of wayfinding. 

Client–RTD, City & County of Denver, Downtown Denver Partnership
Team–ZGF: Project Lead
            Noble Erickson: Branding and Experiential Design