The purpose of this project was to design a new way finding system for the City of La Mesa’s biking and walking trails titled Urban Trails. The final deliverables included environmental graphic designs for way finding signage, trail markers, trail maps, and kiosks. For my design, I was very inspired by the fact that the City of La Mesa has been nicknamed “The Jewel of the Hills” and I therefore wanted to stick with the idea of the trails being named after different gems. While walking around La Mesa, I noticed that a lot of the surrounding restaurants and shops are very trendy, yet with a rustic feel. I really wanted my design to fit in with that rustic vibe so I stuck with warm deep brown tones to give that rustic and very warm welcoming vibe. I used white as the color for my text to really contrast with the dark brown in order for the route names and directions to be seen clearly from far distances, being as people will be walking or biking along the trails. I incorporated the City of La Mesa logo into the signage as a cut-through element so that people can easily associate the urban trails with the city of La Mesa, and also give the signage a fun feel along with the spinning gems in the kiosk designs. 

My working process for this project included creating a mood board of different elements I wanted to incorporate in my design, researching existing way finding examples, researching The City of La Mesa, as well as physically visiting the La Mesa Urban Trails in order to photograph and better understand the final intended placement of the way finding signage. I then went on to create many hand drawn sketches and digital explorations.