Alma del mar charter school

Arrowstreet / 2021

The Frederick Douglass charter school campus in New Bedford, MA was designed by Arrowstreet’s architecture team and is currently being constructed. With a predominantly Latinx student population and a dedication to creating young scholars, the clients wanted the environmental graphics to properly represent the diverse young students while emphasizing their mission and “habits.”

Awards

• Rethinking the Future 2023 Runner-up for Built Signage Design

Mural

We wanted to celebrate the campus’ hero, Frederick Douglass, with a large mural in the main entry. We used quotes from Douglass behind the him as well as within his jacket. We took important care in his illustration to reflect his signature serious expression, but utilized colors in the building and an illustration style that is approachable for the elementary school.

There was a lot of process behind adding the typography into the mural. We looked at a large variety of text sizes in different directions, playing with legibility and imagery. We also considered letting the vinyl text fall outside the frame, and a few different sizes for the colorful dimensional frame that is currently being fabricated.

Habit Walls

The school tries to teach their scholars three “habits”–Service, Responsibility, and Consideration. With three wall spaces at the secondary entrance and staircase that connects to the second floor community space, we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to highlight one habit per wall. Because of the diverse group of students, it became equally important to include Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Because three is the magic number here, there were also three levels of information to include–the habits, their definitions, and bullet point examples of how to practice these habits.

We worked on several variations, but landed on a version with the definitions in speech bubbles, as if the scholars are saying it themselves. The bullet points take on more of a texture in the background.

Artwork Frames

The clients really wanted a dedicated space where the students could show off their artwork. We created a layout for a variety of decorative frames with burlap backing for student’s work to be pinned up. The frames are intended to be painted a variety of colors that work with the rest of the color palette in the school.

Entrance Signage

This new build required a new monument sign and entrance identification. Many concepts were drawn for the monument sign to complement the architecture. We worked with the architects on the location of the Entrance I.D. and include a pop of color on the returns that also match the building.

Gym Floor Graphics

The new gym floor needed some branding, and we came up with several concepts utilizing the brand colors and logo.