Hunt Design Associates


Year Founded:

1977

Core Business:

Environmental graphic design for buildings, places and spaces

Revenues in 1995:

$750,000

Revenues in 2000:

$1.6 million

Revenues in 2001:

$1.8 million (projected)

Employees in 1995:

8

Employees in 2001:

16

Goal:

To become an influential firm in the environmental graphics and exhibit design field

Driving Force:

Public- and private-sector entities’ desire to elicit attention and curiosity from customers with notoriously short attention spans

Creating a sense of place for theme parks, shopping malls and public spaces has pointed hunt design on the road to growth

One of the first things a visitor notices when calling on Hunt Design Associates is that the company’s headquarters is not marked very well.

In fact, it’s not marked at all, other than the “25” on the door of its North Mentor Avenue office building in Pasadena. Unremarkable in most cases, perhaps, but curious because Hunt Design is gaining a reputation as a designer of directional and environmental graphics.

After all, the firm’s signage helps visitors find their way around Universal CityWalk. Ever referred to a sign to find something in Culver City? Hunt Design. Los Angeles Zoo? Hunt. MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas? Hunt again.

Still, Principal Wayne Hunt doesn’t see the irony in not having a sign identifying what’s inside the building that’s just across the street from the Ice House comedy club.

“I don’t feel I need one,” Hunt said. “We don’t have a lot of walk-in business. I don’t feel a need to have a presence on the street.”

For those who do have that need, though, signs increasingly point to Hunt. His business has grown from a one-man operation in 1977 to the 16-person business that he expects will generate $1.8 million in revenues this year.

“We went with the economy,” Hunt says in describing his company’s successes during the late 1990s. “People who didn’t grow during that period weren’t paying attention.”

But Hunt’s success seems to be coming from more than just playing the game. Hunt was paying attention before the economy took off. He was keen enough to perceive the nascent trend among retail and entertainment developments toward establishing a greater sense of place. The market for people with designers’ eyes and artistic creativity combined with a sense of the logistics of getting from here to there opened up and Hunt moved in.

Creating distinction

“It was sort of driven by shopping centers,” he said. “The tenants are all the same, so the point of difference in a shopping center has to be the environment. A Gap’s a Gap. The property owner needs to create a unique environment to distinguish himself from the guy down the street.”

The concept of place-making, Hunt said, was born at theme parks, where he cut his teeth. The landmark project for the company was Disney’s Pleasure Island, which was in 1988.

Hunt calls the nine-acre Pleasure Island in Orlando, Fla., the prototype for the mixed-use theme developments such as CityWalk, which Hunt claims credit for naming.

“It’s such a managed industry that everybody knows we did (Pleasure Island),” Hunt of the theme park realm. “It became what were known for and led us straight to CityWalk. Once you get that, you get the next one.”

From that calculus, Hunt got Old Pasadena. No, it’s not Old Town Pasadena. Hunt and company never would call a place Old Town Pasadena. That would provide people the opportunity to cut out words on their own.

“We try to work with names that people can’t shorten, things that are in their conversational habit,” he said. “If you can’t tell a cab driver in one sentence, it’s a crummy name.”

Windom Kimsey a principal in Las Vegas architectural firm Tate, Snyder, Kimsey Architects has been using Hunt Design as a consultant since 1994. He said Hunt and his staff don’t just show up to a job with a set of new signs.

“They have an understanding of how people might use a space,” Kimsey said. “They have a very logical way to go through the process of how people use things.”

Lora LaMarca, marketing and public relations director for the Los Angeles Zoo, said Hunt is the perfect guy to help execute the zoo’s “renaissance.” She said Hunt understands the signage issues of large venues and has a way of conspicuously fitting into environments.

“We have a tendency to be bland here, with a lot of grays and beiges,” LaMarca said. “Color is something that’s coming in because we want people to look at (signs) and read them.”

While he does about 50 percent of his work in the public sector, Hunt said government contracts have to be kept at a reasonable level because they typically involve working on teams, and therefore, limit his own expression and creativity.

Public flair

The zoo project has allowed him to marry the pleasure he gets from working on public projects with his creative bent.

“We don’t always get the chance to do really cool stuff in the public realm,” he said. “Shouldn’t a zoo be as interesting as a casino?”

For Hunt, who has a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design from the University of Illinois, it has been a fortunate ride to finding his niche. After all, he said, many people spend careers looking for a place they feel comfortable and stimulated.

“I always wanted to be an architect, but I’m a graphic designer,” the 53-year-old Hunt said. “It’s what we do. I think this fits pretty well for me.”

That said, he’s never content professionally.

“I get bored,” Hunt said. “I want to work on something else tomorrow. I do my best work when I’m curious. Curiosity drives innovation.”