The civic leaders of Jefferson City, Missouri required a long term master plan to educate visitors about the State Capital. The master plan study was conducted by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) and revealed that cohesive wayfinding and informational graphics were crucial to the plan’s success. Arcturis was hired to develop a brand identity system to integrate the historic Capitol Building with its surrounding areas.

Featuring a custom graphic of the Capitol, the clearly identifiable iconography serves as the visual anchor for all wayfinding signage.  Visitors can navigate beyond the city center to enjoy parks, visit attractions, utilize transportation, and find restaurants, fulfilling the vision of the master plan.

As part of a continuing effort to make the America’s Center Convention Complex “the front door to St. Louis,” America’s Center collaborated with our design studio and Levy Restaurants. The goal was to transform the former Visitor Center at the corner of Convention Plaza into a work café that welcomes visitors and drives in pedestrian traffic from bustling Washington Avenue. Along with the interior design, we created a new brand identity based on a food and aesthetic concept established by Explore St. Louis’s food service partner – Levy Restaurants. Our interior and graphic design teams collaborated to develop the branding, menu signage, environmental graphics and website landing page, ensuring the clarity and consistency of concept.

Adarza (Sanskrit word meaning “reflection”) is a biotech company that develops cutting-edge technology in analyte detection, which provides exceptional clarity to the end users. With rapid growth and a continuous progression of their company, Adarza needed a space that would not only cater to their company’s demands, but also help tell their story and define their culture. As a feature graphic element, Arcturis developed a patterned array of luminous dots that guides users through the space, and also depicts the transparent well-trays that Adarza’s machines use in the detection process.

Arcturis was also inspired by the company’s founding technology and how these elements of reflection and perception could be carried through the space to reflect the brand. This translated into various design solutions, such as privacy film on the conference rooms, and the linear pattern on the glass around the breakroom.

These elements begin as complex or opaque, but gradually begin to provide more clarity as the viewer looks closer. Another important environmental element is the “Community Wall” in the breakroom. A vital component of this company’s brand is their defined culture and the cross-pollination of knowledge. By creating an element that the employees can use to share ideas and contribute to their environment, they are creating their own story and are continuing to define their brand. For anyone visiting their new space, the office provides clarity about not only the technology they provide, but how they define the company’s story and culture.

AIGA St. Louis Design Show Selection, 2018

In 2015 Restoration St. Louis bought 705 Olive to transform it into a hotel under the Marriott Autograph Collection. The building, formerly known as the St. Louis Trust Company building, was designed by iconic architect Louis Sullivan and completed in 1893.  Like all Restoration St. Louis projects, the intent of this project is to revitalize an architecturally significant building and strengthen the surrounding neighborhood.

Highlighting local knowledge and all the offerings of this historic city, the hotel was aptly named Hotel Saint Louis. Engaged for the hotel’s branding, Arcturis created a logo that reflects the singular image of an architect’s stamp as a homage to the building’s past and a vision of its future.

Also tasked with naming and logos for the two restaurants on site, Arcturis created two logos inspired by Sullivan’s vision. The hotel’s restaurant, Union 30, celebrates the former St. Louis Union Trust Company as well as the building’s numerical spot on the city’s landmark list. The logo design incorporates the “bearcats” that adorn the building’s cornice along with a nod to Sullivan’s use of lush Celtic and Art Nouveau natural forms. Form Skybar takes its inspiration from the Louis Sullivan’s principle, “Form ever follows function,” combining Sullivan’s historic ideology with a contemporary type to create a “hipstoric” aesthetic.

After creating the brand guidelines for the hotel, Restoration St. Louis further engaged Arcturis to create the website for the hotel.The voice, content, and imagery chosen for the website evokes a bespoke environment where hotel guests can “make their mark” by creating remarkable itineraries uniquely their own.The clean, image-heavy site beckons guests to the hotel for a stay like no other.

In 2018, Arcturis was engaged by the City of Brentwood, Missouri to craft an identity for the Manchester Renewal Project. The project’s intent, in concert with Great Rivers Greenway and civil engineering demands, is to renew and support changes to the area that will integrate and revitalize retail, residential, pedestrian, and vehicular activity. Arcturis’ Landscape Architecture and Planning team is collaborating on this project as well, and we are thrilled to touch all aspects of the transformation.

Our initial work sessions with the client team helped us to understand the diverse and changing demographics of Brentwood. It was important to reflect the spirit of the growing and energetic community when we concepted this community outreach campaign. Thus, to contemporarily reflect the project goals and intentions, the visual brand had to be dynamic, approachable, and vibrant. The spirited letterforms selected were originally inspired by and created for use in a neighborhood in Argentina where the typographer was raised. Although this city is half a world away from Brentwood, using this typeface provided clarity and communicated a similar story for this flourishing community.

Arcturis developed a brand strategy for this community outreach program entitled Brentwood Bound which included a logo, typography, brand standards, secondary tagline options, and suggestions for use.

Nestled into the word Brentwood, a graphic “100” serves as a subtle nod to Brentwood’s centennial year in 2019 and to a future 100 years of growth. It also refers to Manchester Road’s other name as Missouri’s “Route 100.” Leveraging elements like a red circle and a bold letter “B,” the round icon ties back into the existing park identity developed by Arcturis, yet the new elements better tell the project story and intent. A looped “knot” in the center signifies binding the community together and connecting the greenway to Brentwood and the surrounding communities.

To provide consistency between the brands, colors for this effort were pulled from the Brentwood parks identity palette. However, the team selected brighter and more vibrant tones of these colors to add visual interest and excitement to Brentwood Bound’s brand creating a larger overall palette to diversify the identity.

In addition to the logo and as a part of the kit, we supplied the team with additional brand elements by creating a pattern of shapes through deconstructing various letters and other elements from the logo. This pattern serves illustrates the idea of all the various elements of the project combining to create a brighter future for the city. By providing the client with robust examples and guidelines for how to use their new brand identity, they successfully utilized the kit of parts to create an overall branded experience.

In 2015, Energizer’s personal care division became a new publicly traded company known as Edgewell. The separation provided Edgewell the opportunity to focus on their core strengths building a more agile, nimble, and completive company that could reimagine personal care. To support this mission, Arcturis responded with a flexible, dynamic branded environment that fosters collaboration and innovation. The heart of the space is a large work café where employees, visitors and guests come together to eat, meet, learn, work, and dream in an engaging and sophisticated environment.

The historic Armory building has a rich history that spans decades and genres. Built in 1938 to house the 138th Infantry of the Missouri National Guard, this iconic space later was host to world class tennis players as well as music legends including Tina Turner and the Grateful Dead.

In 2017, a developer purchased the Armory, and Arcturis’ interdisciplinary team was selected to reimagine it. While the architecture team completely reconceptualized the interior, Arcturis’s planning and landscape experts designed the surrounding environment as well.  The graphics team merged historic architectural elements with modern design features, creating a unique logo for the Armory District.

To unify and articulate the entirety of the project, Arcturis developed an easy-to-navigate and inviting website. The team wrote compelling copy, produced custom graphics, and incorporated vintage photographs to support the visionary renderings of the midtown destination to be known as The Armory District.

When asked by Spire (formerly Laclede Gas) to design an exterior sign package utilizing their new brand, our approach for the historic 700 Market Street location followed Philip Johnson's minimalist style of architecture. The signage should fit seamlessly and not compete with the architecture. It should be simple in design and integrate well with the distinctive lines and planes of the building. The signage should be modern as well as classic and timeless, so a stainless steel letterform was chosen. It’s subtle reflective finish creates movement of lights and darks on the faces of the letterforms as you pass by the building. The signage not only identifies the building, but it helps to define the iconic 700 Market as Spire.

Washington University's School of Medicine and BJC Healthcare’s campus share spaces that needed directional, informational, and visual enhancements. Arcturis worked with both groups to develop wayfinding and branded environments within the collective spaces as part of the Campus Renewal Project’s vision of improving the patient and family experience. Projects completed include:

·       An overhead wayfinding signage system for the Link, which is used by thousands of visitors daily to connect within numerous buildings and garages.

· Signage for the new Mid Campus Center that includes office identification, wall and building signage as well as creative color blocks to invigorate and inform.

·       Vibrant wall graphics depicting actual physicians, medical teams, and employees were created and installed along the hallway to the Metro Garage to enhance the exterior visual experience.

·      Wayfinding graphics inside the new Parkview Tower parking garage that utilize vibrant colors to help guide users toward building entry points.