The ARTfx Observer | December 2024
While over the past 42 years we’ve installed signs in nearly every corner of the United States, a large portion of our work can be found right here in our home state of Connecticut. This month, we’d like to highlight two exciting new projects in Hartford and New Haven.
The two projects couldn’t be more different. One is a high-tech interactive information center for the state’s largest convention venue. The other is a sculptural sign for a museum dedicated to the city’s strangest, most beloved cultural ephemera. Both happened forty-five minutes apart on I-91.
Hartford: Connecticut Convention Center
In downtown Hartford, the Connecticut Convention Center now boasts a custom 14-foot-tall, 20-foot-long information kiosk that houses ten interactive LCD touch screens. The new information center features granite countertops and ADA-compliant legibility throughout, bringing big style to the little state’s capital.
Above the kiosk, a high-resolution 10-foot by 10-foot electronic message center sits on the adjacent wall, anchoring the space and giving event organizers a flexible, high-impact display for digital programming, wayfinding, and seasonal messaging.
Project Specs
Kiosk dimensions: 14 ft tall x 20 ft long
Interactive surface: 10 LCD touch screens
Surfaces: Granite countertops
Accessibility: ADA-compliant legibility
Message center: 10 ft x 10 ft high-resolution electronic display
New Haven: Lost in New Haven
Forty-five minutes south, on Connecticut’s southern shoreline, New Haven is getting an exciting new museum. Opening in 2025, Lost in New Haven is a one-of-a-kind collection of ephemera, oddities, trinkets, and signs all related to New Haven’s storied history.
ARTfx brought a client-designed logo into three dimensions. The signature element is a 4-foot-long glowing map pin that juts diagonally outward from the building, emphasizing the museum’s local focus and highlighting the playfulness of this cabinet of curiosities.
The result is a sign that does double duty as a piece of public art. From a distance it reads as a giant map pin landing on the actual city of New Haven. Up close, it’s a finely detailed dimensional logo glowing against a dark facade. Exactly the kind of brief that makes architectural fabrication interesting.
A Connecticut Story
Forty-two years of national project work has taken ARTfx to Boston, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and dozens of cities in between. But the projects in our home state still hit differently. We drive past these signs. Our neighbors visit these venues. The work shows up in our daily routines, not just our portfolio.
Hartford and New Haven represent two extremes of what architectural signage can do. One is a polished, high-tech information system serving thousands of convention visitors. The other is a sculptural sign that tells you, instantly, that the museum behind it is going to be fun. Different briefs, same craft, both right here in Connecticut.
Whether your project calls for an interactive convention center kiosk or a sculptural museum sign, ARTfx covers design, fabrication, and installation under one roof.