Ottawa National Capital Wayfinding

Client Ottawa Tourism
Location Ottawa, Canada
Year 2020-2022
Services: Wayfinding, Information Design, Visual Identity, Cartography, GIS

Ottawa is Canada’s capital and home to many national museums and attractions, making it a year-round destination for local and international visitors. The city’s wayfinding committee selected Steer to realize the final design for their long-standing ambition to establish a world-class unified pedestrian wayfinding system in the capital region. 

In consultation with multiple levels of government, destination marketing and transit agencies, we refined and developed a final family of signage products, a visual identity, and a data-driven mapping base. Colour schemes, fonts, and graphics reflect both the city’s ceremonial heritage and its aspirations as a modern urban centre, with a palette drawn from Ottawa’s civic architecture and unique natural environments.

Upon completion of the detailed design, Steer supported the fabrication and installation of a prototype sign unit in the busy ByWard Market area, as part of the William St revitalization project. This prototype helped to build support among stakeholders for a wider rollout, and created the opportunity test the product and graphic design in real world conditions.

Building on this momentum, we also designed a paper map that will be distributed at hotels and attractions. This product shares cartographic assets and design language with the mapping that appears on signage, and serves as one more step toward a unified information and wayfinding system for the entire capital region.

Consultants/collaborators
Jedco Product Design – Technical design