january 2015 | by melissa boettcher

Over the last few months, we have been taking design intent packages for various National Park Service sites and turning them into fabrication-ready documents. While that may sound rather straightforward, in reality the process can be quite complex. Designers often pick the wrong types of materials for the application, create overly complex designs, pick costly options, or even design components that defy physics! So, we have to try to interpret the design intent and then fit it into reality.

Particular designs can also present safety issues, so we regularly redesign to mitigate any potentially dangerous outcome. One design had a brochure box with a lid that could snap back into place a little too quickly, so we added some gas shocks to keep fingers safe.

Our submitted solutions and drawings are easy to read, but also help clients understand what our intentions are for changes and solutions. These are just a few tasks an industrial designer goes through to make an object that is friendly for the user and easy to fabricate. This process blends equal parts experience, research, and a close reading of the design intent so that an idea becomes reality.

january 2015 | by ben harrison

Its good to be back…

The holidays are a wonderful time of year, for all of us to take some time and reflect and relax at the end of each year. But as the calendar page turns, they must sadly come to an end. The inexorable march of time forces us to set aside our eggnog to venture bravely out into a new year.

As the manager of our print shop I made sure it was nice and clean before I left, only to find it less clean then I remembered upon my return. How do these things happen? Why hasn’t someone made an attempt to catalog such phenomena? Just like every year I carefully coil my strands of lights while putting them away and every time I pull them out a year later they are impossibly tangled.

Much like the dust and strange light tangling, I’ve come back to find that things are not quite how I left them--perhaps shop elves are about? There is a strange amount of work to be done, before I can begin working. At the same time there is something nice about this part of the cycle. It’s a "gear up phase" as I like to think of it. The cleaning, the fixing, and testing of all the equipment in my shop — all has a feeling of preparation; a certain excitement and promise of the great things to come in a new year.

december 2014 | by linda repplinger | show project

How many different kinds of bats do you think fly over our heads at night? I was amazed to learn that at least seventeen bat species could be found in the Spring Mountains, and thirteen are regulars to the McWilliams Campground. While designing bat themed exhibits for the campground, I learned how unique each species really is.

A dark color palette and a background of starry skies set the exhibits’ atmosphere. One exhibit introduces all the species in the style of a team roster with portraits, size, weight, flight characteristics, calls, what they eat, where they roost, and their range. Each species also is shown at full-size flying throughout the exhibits with easy-to-read labels color-coded to the roster.

Other exhibits describe bats’ amazing capabilities for flight and communication, roosting habitats, how and why bats are researched, and why bats are important to the ecosystem and to people.

When visitors look up they see life-sized bats flying above their heads, silhouetted against the sky. This effect is achieved with a mobile, which has metal cutout bats on the ends of long arms that move in the wind. Campers can now call out "to the bat mobile!"

Visitors can also experience what it is like to be a bark roosting bat in the "bat squeeze." The bat squeeze is made up of two rounded exhibits of tree bark that taper at one end to accommodate for various ages and sizes of people.

One final note: When the exhibits were being loaded on the truck to ship to Nevada, a bat flew out from the truck and over our heads, across the blue sky—we’ll take this as a good omen

december 2014 | by kathy hocker

It's a chilly gray day in Juneau, Alaska, but my eight-year-old friend Bruno doesn't mind. Like any proper Alaska kid, he's bundled warmly, cap to boots-in fact, at the rate he's leaping and tumbling along Auke Lake Trail, he' probably too warm.

Sea Reach has been hired to create interpretive exhibits for this trail. Since the signs will be designed primarily for children, I have engaged an expert for advice: I've invited Bruno along so I can learn more about how a kid experiences the trail.

Within just a few yards of the trailhead, it's clear that Bruno's imagination, curiosity, and quicksilver energy make for a decidedly non-adult perspective. Bruno is all about engagement. He prefers to clamber along the sides rather than walk the trail's smooth surface. He takes photos, twirls sticks, and tosses spruce cones, all in rapid succession. When we come across a stilt-rooted tree, he dives in underneath like a porcupine. It takes us almost two hours to travel just about a mile-but it's a mile packed with small adventures.

By the time we get back to the trailhead, my mind is jumping among potential topics like a kid through the woods. I can't wait to start planning the new interpretive signs! First, though, I treat Bruno to a cup of cocoa and a waffle at a local café-a small reward for some truly expert advice.

december 2014 | by megan whitaker

I see them everywhere. They're in grocery stores and newspapers; they even pop up on the news. But I don't ever want to see them on the signage that leaves our shop and gets installed in parks and historic sites all over the country.

One of my jobs at Sea Reach is to proofread (one word, no hyphen) all the signage before it goes to a client - and especially before it goes to press. That means I am frequently asked about hyphens, word divisions, and the correct usages of words that sound the same but have completely different meanings. I ensure (yes, with an "e" and not an "i") that all the panels we produce - including those not of our own design - are grammatically correct and free of spelling errors.

Misspelled words, no matter who writes them, don't have a place on signage commemorating a site, a person or a historic event. And yes, "a historic" - rather than "an historic" - is the current correct usage, according to Oxford.

Common Errors and Sticking Points
Pallet/Palette
Ensure/Insure
Scientific names Genus not capitalized
British spellings
Non-Standard Spelling (Is it Douglas Fir or Douglas-fir? Forest Service or USDA Forest Service?)

november 2014 | by susan jurasz

Too many signs can be nearly as confusing as no signs. In effort to clean up the clutter, Yamhill County decided to combine the blue TODs (tourist oriented directionals) with a map and display them in a kiosk at particularly busy intersections.

Nearly all of the TODs at these sites lead to vineyards. Sea Reach was asked to design the prototype kiosks and fabricate the first two in Yamhill County. The signs can be equipped with a QR code that goes directly to the vineyard's web site.

november 2014 | by susan jurasz | show project

Finishing a big project is bitter sweet. After eight years, we are crossing the finish line. I am surprised at how emotional I feel. Since we started, there are only a few of us that can say we were here from start. Most people have come and gone. And here we are, finessing the last bolt, sweeping the concrete dust from the holes we drill, putting the finishing touches on exhibits that are as much of works of art as they are educational exhibits. Our faces are rosy from the wind and sun exposure in the Spring Mountains above Las Vegas. Our hearts, full of the joy we feel in a job well done, and our minds already searching for the next challenging task ahead of us.

This has been an amazing opportunity and we have loved it.

november 2014 | by susan jurasz

For three days, we travel the loop from Ottawa to Havanah, Illinois along the route designated as a national scenic byway. The weather is incredible, late October, Indian summer. The trees are still bright with color and the corn is waiting for harvest. The sun casts a rich warm hue from its low angle in the sky.

There are so many stories along this byway, beginning with the challenges of connecting Chicago (lake Michigan) to the ocean via the Illinois River to the burial mounds of ancient people. But the sight that intrigued me the most was a series of massive brick buildings that were once the world's largest distillery. Peoria once produced more whisky than any city in world. So great was the revenue from the whiskey tax that Peoria's share of taxes paid to the federal government was larger than that of any other district in the entire United States. River access, good water, an abundance of corn and barley, and good means of transportation all contributed to the unprecedented success of Peoria's alcohol industry. Having once employed over 1000 people, the distillery's production peaked in 1969 with over 8.5 million cases of whiskey. But increasingly strict environmental regulations made the coal-powered plant obsolete, and they closed the doors in the 1980s after 50 years of production. Today the site processes ethanol. This will be one of the stories we highlight in an interpretive plan for the byway.

november 2014 | by susan jurasz

I am standing in "Downtown Abby," listening to a National Park Service Interpretive Specialist weave into a story all the aspects of a lovely drawing room - a setting from the early 1900s: a young woman, Eliza, who is a passionate horticulturalist and has a family with the means to allow her to collect in person... or invite guests who will bring as gifts unique tree species from around the world. The trees now over 100 years old stand sentinel to the majestic mansion.

The grand estate and grounds of the Hampton National Historical Site in Maryland was once the home of a prestigious American family called the Ridgleys. Generations lived and prospered on this estate, and as the young nation changed, so did their lives.

Sea Reach has been tasked with the design, fabrication, and installation of exhibits into the new visitor welcome center at the estate.

october 2014 | by ira trussell | show project

Three huge reservoirs along the Lewis River, Washington, generate power that supplies homes and businesses all over the Pacific Northwest. To keep the huge turbines going, you need lots of water! Speelyai Park can be a particularly wet place, especially in October. Lush stands of evergreens and ferns are a testament to the 50+ inches of precipitation that fall on the area each year. Installing two large 'winged' kiosks at this time of year could pose a soggy challenge.

Thankfully, our installation team also keeps a close eye on the weather. They reckoned that a break between fall storms would eventually appear - giving just enough time to travel the 3 hours to the site and install the kiosks.

This was the fourth installation of this type of kiosk by our crew at a Pacificorp facility. During the first installation phase several years ago, the custom kiosk design had required some creative workarounds in the field. Now, however, being seasoned veterans of installing that particular design, the install was finished in under three hours.