Arts in Action is a Charter Elementary School in East Los Angeles, California. Historically, most K-12 students in urban, minority neighborhoods have less access to the arts, to progressive education methods, and to content on global social issues. Arts in Action strives to help students develop emotion and artistic skills to be a well-rounded student through their arts program and social justice curriculum.
We were contracted through Del Amo Construction to do their exterior and interior signs. Arts in Action Elementary School was moving to a new location which is why they were in need of completely new signage. The exterior signs consisted of a building sign, an entrance sign, and address numbers. For the interior, they needed ADA compliant signs. Building signs are essential to identifying the school so we made two building signs, both facing Via Corona St. One was installed high-up on top of the 2-story building, and the other was installed above the entryway where there was an awning. Both signs are reverse channel letters. As you can see from the photos, the one that was installed on the building is reverse-lit which means that the light is coming from the back of the letters. The sign on the awning was left non-illuminated because reverse-lit channel letters need something for the light to reflect off of, and the sign was going to be too far away from the building for the light to reach.
The ADA sign design was called out by the architect on the project. They chose a gray background with white lettering and white Braille for a light but neutral set of signage. As long as the color of the lettering contrasts with the background color, you can essentially use any non-glare color for your ADA signs. Per code, the room identification signs all have raised lettering and Braille. We also made other required signs such as handicap signs, maximum occupancy signs, exit signs, and restroom signs.