New WTC Logo Adorns Site
By Tobias Salinger August 15, 2014 12:57 pm
reprints
A new World Trade Center logo by the Landor corporate branding firm has emerged on signage at the site almost a year after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey chose the firm to design it through a competitive bidding process, The New York Times reported yesterday.
The agency tapped the firm with a $3.57 million contract to paste the symbolic assemblage the company designed on construction fencing, directional markers and mobile applications in a markup that depicts the five new towers rising or slated to rise from the site in a W-like form while also evoking memories of the steel tridents of the now-fallen twin towers.
“As the redevelopment of the WTC site achieves critical schedule milestones, the need to develop and implement an integrated site-wide wayfinding, signage, and communications program is clear,” minutes from the agency’s Sept. 18, 2013 board meeting read. “The proposed program would support the commencement of critical on-site operational activities and prepare for the needs of millions of visitors, through the development of a comprehensive and integrated wayfinding and signage system, which would include an internet presence, mobile device applications, and an operational service protocols program.”
Port Authority commissioners approved the measure at the meeting last year and workers posted the first signs on Wednesday. The scope of the contract includes electronic retail and office directories, a website and digital strategy, uniforms for employees and information kiosks, according to the minutes.
“The logo and the identity of the 16-acre site was designed to embody above and below grade at the site,” said Port Authority spokeswoman Erica Dumas, referring to the parallel spaces on the top part of the logo for missing towers and the dual lines beneath for the new memorial to them. “Each building on the site has its own identity, of course, but there still needs to be a unified identity of the site.”
Landor, the company that also designed logos for Fedex, John Deere, BP and Smirnoff, keeps offices in 26 cities worldwide. Company officials didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
