Providing Care and Comfort: Exterior Signage at Community Alliance

Creating Timeless Yet Bold Signs for a Mental Health Facility

Community Alliance is a healthcare organization in Omaha, Nebraska, that offers psychiatric care, counseling, primary care, and other support services. During the pandemic, the organization saw a rapidly growing need for mental healthcare, so they built a 127,700-square-foot facility that would serve up to three times the number of people their existing facilities could hold.

The new building opened in June 2024 with Latitude Signage + Design signage adding timeless style and branding to the facility.

Signage Needs

The new Community Alliance building has multiple entrances over an expansive property. Clear, communicative wayfinding signage was crucial in providing a comfortable, efficient experience for patients, employees, and visitors.

Rainwood Development Partners came to us for help with this signage project. The architect, Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture (APMA), had a concept in mind that we brought to life by designing, manufacturing, and installing the exterior signs.

Well Balanced Sign Design

A soft, timeless look was key for sign design success. The signs needed to be large to help people easily find their way, but we didn’t want them look too overwhelming.

“We wanted to reassure people when they arrived at Community Alliance,” said Rebecca Kleine, the project's business development manager. “We wanted to give a welcoming feel that wasn’t too loud or in your face.”

Our goal was to use all the square footage available at Community Alliance to not only build a cohesive visual brand, but also provide campus navigation so people could always tell where they were and where they needed to go. Each entrance is clearly labeled with an easy-to-read sign, and other helpful wayfinding signage is prevalent throughout the campus.

The Logistics

The grant Community Alliance received required that the new building had to be close to a bus stop, on a main street, and in the middle of Omaha. As a result, Community Alliance is located off one of the busiest streets in the city, with traffic zooming by at 45 miles per hour. To ensure people didn’t miss the building entirely, we designed an oversized main monument sign that would attract attention and be clearly visible from the street.

We wanted the sign to take up 40 square feet of space so that the letters would be easy to read from a distance. But we were only allowed 32 square feet. That meant working with the Zoning Board of Appeals to get approval. With help from the city and the owner’s representative construction firm, our appeal passed, and we got our giant main monument sign.

The beautiful Community Alliance building is brick with inset metal panels. That made it tricky to get all the letters of our signs on an even surface. Our solution was an oversized raceway that minimized mechanical and electrical penetrations into the building, which helped maintain the building’s aesthetics.

The slightly curved sign design with push-through acrylic fit well with the building’s classic understated exterior. The sans serif font Community Alliance’s branding agency chose worked perfectly for the oversized signs.

The result? A sleek, sophisticated campus that’s inviting, comforting, and easy to navigate. Learn more here.

Have questions about this project? Connect with our signage expert on this project, Rebecca Kleine.

Connect Today for any questions on incorporating creative signage solutions in your building project.

Learn more about healthcare signage here.