​As part of White River Development’s plans to revitalize downtown White River Junction, the venerable United States Post Office building at 46 South Main Street was renovated and reconfigured to create office space for three tenants.

When the Norwich, Vermont offices of SVE Associates and ORW Landscape Architects & Planners relocated to this historic space, the Client asked Charles Gibson Design to develop an exterior and interior identity sign program. CGD responded with a site specific concept that communicates simultaneously on two levels. By transforming the existing logos for both firms into traditional, perforated stamps, the signs clearly express the presence of the two tenants while commenting on the original purpose of the renovated Post Office.

For the interior phase, the “stamps” feature each firm’s logo and full name. For the exterior, CGD developed a variation that substitutes the street address for the standard monetary denomination of the stamp. This creates a typographic “pun” that enhances the signs’ reading as stamps. Further commentary on the building’s original purpose is realized in the lobby stairwell by exploiting the modular nature of the stamp to create repetitive “stamp sheets.”

Repetitive stamp arrays were also used in conceptual studies for an exterior directory and four architectural banners.