The Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at West Virginia University pioneers innovation. Student labs and classrooms are high-tech, visually stunning, and inspiring...but other spaces remain the same as they were when the buildings were first built. This particular entrance to the Engineering Sciences Building, the tallest and most widely utilized building on the engineering campus, was a bit outdated. For being the first room you walk into as a touring student or incoming freshman, it was not particularly inviting and didn't adhere well with WVU's new brand identity. It was time for a refresh.
The view from the atrium, leading the path outside into the Engineering Sciences Building. Multiple sets of double glass doors separate the entrance from the main floor
The left wall from the entrance to Engineering Sciences building, with a white marble wall with brass 3D letters spelling "ENGINEERING" and a dark navy fabric banner reading "Take your first step to discover your future."
The main floor of Engineering Sciences Building from doors, with a single white marble wall to the left and several black marble walls stretching into the distance
The right side of the main floor in Engineering Sciences Building, a plain white wall with one white marble slab.
Aside from taking extensive measurements to account for fire alarms, doorways, awkward ceiling slants, etc., I had to examine how a student passes through this space. How much of the room do they see through the glass doors as they enter from the outside? If they study in the adjacent lounge to the right of the entrance, what would they be staring at in place of the brass "ENGINEERING" letters?
These all informed my first sketches and drafts. I chose to execute a continuous graphic that wrapped around the entire space and covered both the white and black marble.
There were a lot of parameters to work around. WVU was in the middle of a rebrand, so while some fonts, colors, and elements were staying the same, others were changing drastically—but we couldn't know details until they did an official relaunch of the brand, and we had to have this project installed before then. I had to experiment within the guidelines I had access to in the meantime to see what would work, from slogans to textures to fonts and more.
We also only had a few months from start to finish to complete the final design due to budgetary constraints. My design had to be clean, accurately measured, scaled correctly, and I had to communicate frequently with other departments and vendors for proper approvals as we went.
This was also my first ever environmental graphic. All of these challenges made this project a massive undertaking to complete in just several months.
I made a lot of iterations and worked closely with the Statler Marketing & Communication department as well as WVU's Strategic Communications team to examine what would and wouldn't work. To install such a large-scale vinyl wrap would be time consuming and expensive; I didn't want to make any design choices that would out-date my work within a year or two.
While designing in Illustrator, I simultaneously mocked up the design on real pictures of the space to ensure the continuous graphic looked how we wanted as you move through the space. With this much vinyl and little room for reprints or errors, it was important to get as many mock-ups as possible before installing so that everything went smoothly.
Welcome Home mockup on royal blue wall; previous versions change the 'welcome' from dark blue to royal blue to finally pale blue, and the slash has become transparent overlays instead of a solid color.
The blue to white gradient and circuits plus an aerial image of campus are added and the buildings are full color with location markers and fun facts.
The final wall section has circuits fading into a topography texture with the full college logo rather than just a flying WV on a solid shape.
My design highlighted WVU's digital signage system (in the third picture above), provided an in-depth aerial map of the engineering campus, and combined familiar WVU brand components with ones specific to Statler. The result not only brightens up the area so that it truly reflects the innovation in the college, but fits within WVU branding while still having its own flair unique to the engineering college.
The first section of the final Welcome Home wall. Toopography lines merge into circuit endings, travelling to the words "Welcome home".
The second section of the final Welcome Home wall. A full color overlay of campus buildings, with location markers and fun facts for each building, overlaying a blue gradient and circuits that lead the eye to the next part of the wall.
The circuits from the previous wall lead you to the "Let's Go!" logo, and the wall begins to fade to yellow. Circuits lead back into topography as the Statler College logo ends the wall graphics.
A small section of circuits to cover the remaining marble wall unattached to any previous wall.
The final space is vibrant, more welcoming, and makes it easier for new students to navigate campus, with an aerial graphic containing campus landmarks. More than that, it modernizes an already well-loved building so that plenty of future students can feel proud to be a part of this college whenever they pass through.
Photo of the first section of the installed wall from the glass entrance doors.
Photo of the second section of the installed wall, where the graphic turns into the aerial of campus.
An overview of all walls as they appear after the vinyl has been installed; the space is much brighter and colorful, and no longer swallows the light.
The last section of the installed wall, with the digital signage monitor reinstalled back over the vinyl. The circuits in the design wrap around it and the college logo ends the segment.
