New sign welcomes travelers
Design of new sign entering Siloam Springs from Oklahoma incorporates city logo with directional signage.
Folks driving into Siloam Springs from Oklahoma may have noticed a new sign welcoming people to the city.
It’s hard to miss. The sign that sits atop two 10-foot-tall poles is four-feet high by eight-feet wide, but it’s not as large as it could have been.
“We didn’t think a huge sign on that site would make sense,” said city communications director Holland Hayden. “It’s just so busy right there that we had to look pretty carefully for a spot. We wanted to represent what a gateway sign means, but without creating any additional distraction for drivers and still represent what our town is all about.”
The blue and green sign incorporates the city’s colors and
official logo. City marketing manager Sandy Luetjen was on the committee that met through the Northwest Arkansas Council to create directional signs for eight cities as part of seed money from the Walton Family Foundation. Luetjen wanted the welcome sign to be a blend of the city’s logo with the look of the eight directional signs around town. She worked with Merje, a company out of West Chester, Pa., on the design.
“We love the directional signs. I think they are very elegant,” Luetjen said. “For those signs in Northwest Arkansas, there is kind of a hill, or a slant, and those were the hills in Northwest Arkansas. Years ago, in 2007 perhaps, the city launched a new logo and it’s the logo we use now, and we wanted to use the same two colors and kind of incorporate both into the design of the welcome sign.”
The cost for the sign was $3,885. It was manufactured and installed by Lightning Bolt Advertising LLC, a company in Siloam Springs.