New street signage coming for downtown L.A. galleries

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Art fans in downtown Los Angeles no doubt have started to notice some new signs going up around the neighborhood.

A week ago, the city began putting up a series of 25 street signs intended to demarcate the area’s Gallery Row district, which roughly encompasses Spring and Main streets between 2nd and 9th streets. The signs are expected to be ready for the Downtown Art Walk on Nov. 12.

Architecture and design firm Durfee | Regn created the signs, attached to sidewalk lampposts 16 feet from the ground. The signs are 5 inches tall and 12 feet wide; two thin panels announce ‘Gallery Row’ on both sides.
‘We wanted to create a feeling of a special area or a zone,’ said Tim Durfee, one of the leaders of the project. He added that the signs were designed to be easily removable in case of film shoots, which are common in the downtown area.

Collectively, the signs are intended to create a large dashed-line effect that indicates the borders of Gallery Row.

The signs are part of a city-funded project organized by L.A.’s Community Redevelopment Agency, according to Durfee. (The agency did not immediately respond to a question of how much the project costs.) City code mandates that signs be 15 pounds or less, so the designers chose a light honeycomb panel that is used in the aerospace industry.

As part of the project, graphic designer Brian Roettinger has created a Gallery Row logo that will be placed on the windows of the neighborhood art galleries.

-- David Ng