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Tacoma Urbanist

May. 7, 2008 at 12:26am

Good, Bad, Ugly Signage Hits Downtown Tacoma

New Signs Appearing in Downtown Tacoma



Which do you think are the best and worse?



Juno sign is pretty cool.
  Looks better in person.  Dark Blue.  Relates to what is happening inside.  If there was ever a place downtown where a club will not disturb anything it is here in the middle of a pack of parking garages.




Maxwell sign.  Simple and low key.  Nice.
 

Clear Channel.  Does the candidate realize how people feel about billboards?  This one over a surface level parking lot.


Downtown Tacoma needs Italian food.   Merende is being built where Vin Grotto used to be.




The sign of this painful dead plaza looks so innocent and unknowing.


 
This private-public signage combination is downright depressing.  Department of Corrections and a Bail Bond outfit on the same building.  A dysfunctional symbiotic revolving door relationship of sorts.  It could make one experience a fleeting thought of moving to the isolation of the suburbs.




This sign is in Satellite Coffee parking lot.  I could be a Chris Sharp original like the mural on the building.  Pretty cool though.

comments [10]  |  posted under tacoma
Comments

by Adam the Alien
on 5/7/2008 @ 1:52am
Wait...Juno is a club?

Geez...when I first saw that sign, driving by it, I figured it was an office building for the internet company.

by KevinFreitas
on 5/7/2008 @ 6:45am
That Juno sign is the worst. Looks like a bad copy of the Halo video game logo.



I really like that Maxwell's sign. Classy.

by ixia
on 5/7/2008 @ 7:39am
Maxwell is fun, perhaps a bit too small for the metal bracket.
The worst by far is Tolefson. It seems to apologize and invite to call because problems are expected.......

by intacoma
on 5/7/2008 @ 7:40am
hotel murano still has a terrible sign, it looks great during the day but then at night a big white m :(

by FunkomaVintage
on 5/7/2008 @ 8:21am
I like the Merkle's....simple, and old school, and .......just.....real.....old. It simply says "HOTEL".
My faves tho are the ones painted on brick.

by Heather
on 5/7/2008 @ 8:54am
I'd like to nominate the Clear Channel sign above Hal of a Sub advertising the Apex condos in the Tacoma Mall area.

by NineInchNachos
on 5/7/2008 @ 9:01am
they all deserve to be burned at the stake. except for the satellite one maybe

by Erik
on 5/7/2008 @ 10:52am
The worst by far is Tolefson. It seems to apologize and invite to call because problems are expected.......

I believe the term is called "wayfinding."

The Tollefson Plaza sign is useful in case people are scheduled to have a business meeting lunch or date in Tollefson Plaza and they don't know where it is.


by ixia
on 5/7/2008 @ 2:28pm
People have meetings and dates inTolefson?
Amazing.
Do I call 591-5495 to make reservations?
Just in case it gets crowded...

by Erik
on 5/7/2008 @ 2:31pm
People have meetings and dates inTolefson?

No. I was kidding. So far the space has been unable to even attract Chronic Public Inebriants.

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A ongoing conversation to make Tacoma a better to live and work through better urban design.

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