When the developers of a Middle Eastern island needed a system to direct residents and visitors, they turned to a Playa del Rey business specializing in art, communications and environmental design.

The company, Selbert Perkins Design, is now in the process of naming streets and developing an address system for Saadiyat Island off Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf.

It’s a job that points to the unique niche Selbert Perkins occupies: a firm with competencies stretching from logo and sign design to public art and street nomenclature.

“It’s a fun part of our business to educate the world on how to find your way,” said co-founder Clifford Selbert, who co-owns the business with his wife, Robin Perkins.

Closer to home, the firm has worked on iconic projects such as the mammoth CityCenter mixed-use development in Las Vegas, and a $70 million art and signage program at Los Angeles International Airport.

Much of the company’s business centers on signage for buildings and “way-finding” – a term used to describe the various implements that help people get around public spaces. Sometimes that’s a simple as a sign with a directional arrow; in other cases it might entail a new address system. There are no more than 50 firms in the country similar to Selbert Perkins, according to those who know the industry.

“(They) have a flair and a knack for understanding what their clients are trying to achieve and bring that into the design of projects,” said David Simon, managing director of Broadreach Capital Partners LLC, a Palo Alto-based real estate development firm that’s worked with Selbert Perkins on a handful of local projects.

The company has expanded in the last decade, adding offices in Chicago; Honolulu; and Dubai, which has been a base for its burgeoning Middle Eastern business.

However, the firm has downsized. After years of steady growth, six of the company’s 40 employees left last year – because of marriage and other examples of what the company calls “natural attrition” – and weren’t replaced.

Selbert said the downsizing only made the company more efficient and was not related to a loss of business.

Married partnership

The company was founded in 1997, though Selbert and Perkins have been working together since 1988, when Perkins joined Selbert’s prior company, Boston’s Clifford Selbert Design. Both are natives of New York state and graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design. The couple, married in 2004, said their partnership is a close one.

“The weird thing is if you ask Cliff a question in one room and ask me the question in another room, nine times out 10 we will give you the same answer,” Perkins said.

The husband-and-wife team didn’t move to Los Angeles until 1999, but began working here in 1991, when radio station company KISS Radio hired the duo for a branding campaign. The billboard campaign, which featured people kissing, was deemed too risqué for KISS’ Boston station, but was used for L.A.’s KIIS-FM (102.7).

That was the first of several jobs they had in Los Angeles, prompting them to shuttle back and forth between the coasts before buying a bungalow in the Pacific Palisades in 1996, just before Selbert Perkins was founded. Three years later, they made Los Angeles their permanent home, but retained a Boston office that still operates today.

Selbert was intrigued by the creative climate here and things moved quickly. The firm developed a relationship with Los Angeles World Airports in the mid-1990s, when it designed logos for LAX. That business led to the firm’s most iconic project – the oversized glass columns that have dotted airport’s entrance since 2000.

“It definitely added more visibility for us,” said Perkins of the $30 million project. “It really became a symbol and an icon.”

The company completed a separate $40 million signage and way-finding project at the airport in 2004.

Not all of the firm’s projects are that big, but even so some have been notable. Selbert Perkins’ work with Broadreach, for example, included building-top signage for tenant CNN at the real estate firm’s 6430 Sunset Blvd. building in Hollywood. The animated signs include the news channel’s logo with a white line flowing through the center of the network’s familiar lettering. The project cost CNN $250,000.

Selbert Perkins’ fee structure varies from project to project. It may be based on a percentage of the entire cost of the project or a percentage of the fabrication cost. Fees range from less 1 percent to more than 2 percent, with the company charging as little as $5,000 to as much as $3 million per project. The company costs include in-house design while contractors are hired to fabricate the designs.

Selbert declined to detail profits, though he said the firm is profitable. He said that the firm’s revenue has increased by 10 percent or more every year for the last five years.

International designs

The company was introduced to some of its international work by Venice architect Jon Jerde, whose Jerde Partnership design studio has offices in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Selbert said that his company has worked with Jerde on projects in Japan, China, Indonesia, Singapore and, in 2004, in Dubai. That led to jobs there and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Selbert Perkins is currently working on Festival City, a large Dubai development for which the firm has developed branding, graphic standards and public art.

“They seem to have plenty of money, frankly,” said Selbert of his Middle East clients.

Another big area of growth is China. Selbert Perkins hopes to open a Shanghai office next year.

Though there are few companies that occupy the same niche as Selbert Perkins, it does have local competitors, including Sussman/Prejza in Culver City and Hunt Design in Pasadena.

“We compete with them all the time; they do a great job,” said Wayne Hunt, founding principal of his namesake firm. Hunt said his company does more “institutional work,” such as with the National Park Service.

However, about 60 percent of Selbert Perkins’ business comes from the public sector. For example, in 2006 the firm was hired by the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors to revive the Marina del Rey WaterBus, a boat taxi service.

The firm’s work, which included a new logo and signage, was completed in June 2006. Ridership shot up by 80 percent that summer, said Debbie Talbot, marketing analyst for the county department. Before the redesign, focus groups indicated riders had trouble finding boarding locations.

“I really attribute it to them. It was the design factor. Ridership had kept declining and declining,” Talbot said. “They really pulled the project out of the ashes for us.”