Minnco Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative serving its members/owners in Minnesota. Minnco recently went through a rebrand that included an updated logo and color palette. They selected Spectrum Sign Systems as their sign partner to help bring their new look to each of their locations.
Understanding Minnco's Goals
Spectrum met with the Minnco team to understand their goals and the scope of the project. Minnco has seven sites in the northern suburbs that needed rebranding, and brand consistency was very important to them.
They wanted to use their new building in Princeton as the design template for the other locations. They also had digital displays at a few sites and wanted to add matching pylon signs with digital displays at the other sites.
With a clear understanding of their goals, Spectrum Sign Systems set out to create signs that would accomplish their goals.
Site Surveys and City Code Research
Our site survey crews treated each jobsite as its own project and gathered the following information.
- Scoped out the best vantage points to maximize visibility
- Mapped property lines, utilities and right of way locations
- Took building measurements
- Measured existing digital displays
- Color matched walls
- Measured placement areas
- Photographed sight lines, close up and distant
- Photographed building architecture and surrounding buildings
- Confirmed attachment options
Our permitting professionals researched the rules and regulations in each city. Since Princeton was a brand new building, we worked with the city of Princeton on the allowable square footage. We had to tweak the designs to bring them into alignment with city code for allowable square footage on the building’s exterior.
Consistency Important in Branding
An important aspect of the project was creating a consistent look across all locations. We took into account each location's building size, shape, architectural features and color, and matched that with each city’s code. Then we worked closely with the corporate team at Minnco to lay out exactly where the signage would go on each of the buildings, and added additional signage in a few locations.
This allowed us to create an overall plan that would maximize what was allowed at each site while creating a consistent sign plan for the future.
More Illumination and Message Centers
The old brand was a mix between illuminated and non-illuminated letters due to font and sizing. Minnco’s new logo allowed for more lighted signs. We were able to maximize the allowable size for each lighted sign and still meet city code.
We added new monument signs with digital displays at sites that didn’t currently have them. During the site survey, we measured the existing digital display message centers and installed new ones with the same height and width aspect ratio. This was important to the marketing department so they would only have to design messages in one size that would fit all of the displays. This also allowed for consistency at each site.
We created blank out signs for their drive throughs alerting customers to when the drive up windows are open or closed.
Interior Signage
To highlight their new brand inside the buildings, we designed a 4.5 ft wide x 1.5 ft high, LED face and halo illuminated interior logo display above the teller desk and in the conference room. We used high intensity white LED lights to give it a halo glow.
We featured their new logo using frosted crystal privacy film. Using their branded M and swoosh, we branded many of their interior doors and conference rooms.
Plan for the Future
The collaboration between their team and our sales and design team has helped to create a standard for how all their buildings will look going forward.
We value our relationship with Minnco Credit Union and look forward to continuing to work together in the future.
