Burlington, MA
Designing the Matrix
Nuance Communications, a global leader and innovator in conversational AI, commissioned LLM Design to create an environmental graphics masterplan and wayfinding system for its Massachusetts headquarters, as well as its 180+ global offices. Our designers deciphered (at a conceptual level, of course!) the highly technical products before developing a system of brand-authentic visuals, derived mostly from data driven graphics and sound waves. And it was all designed within the greater context of translating the Nuance core value of being more human–more personal–into their daily lives.
Insights
Brand Strategy, Signage, Wayfinding, Environmental Graphics
This environmental graphics and wayfinding system showcases Nuance Communication’s various technology sectors as beautiful visuals translated into significant moments throughout their workspace. As part of that effort, we produced a design toolkit to implement this program at all of the corporate offices, from the headquarters in Massachusetts to each of its 180+ global locations.
During strategy sessions, we came to understand departmental differences and the subsequent need to build a common corporate culture that was in keeping with Nuance Communication’s strong brand promise to reinvent relationships. The programming we developed identified the types of content to address the various users, space types, and goals of the environmental design. These culminated in five distinctive channels: Story, Culture Build, Mission/Values, Information/Data, and Wayfinding. Taking the five vehicles identified, the program is introduced through a network of connecting experiences throughout the workplace.
Nuance Communications, Advance Reproductions
Translating Technology Into Design
Creative direction was driven by the Nuance vision to make their technology human, more personal, and to translate those values into a workplace experience. We broke the concept into three themes: COGNITION, driven by AI and expressed with texture and light; COMMUNICATION, connecting people and building relationships as expressed through visual lines and pattern; and MOVEMENT, a forward innovation expressed with blends and softer edges. Drawing from the existing architectural material and paint palette, LLM built a matrix of graphic patterns, information graphics, and brand text phrases and overlaid these onto a wayfinding system.
The branded environmental graphics system we created is strong enough to represent a cohesive brand, while also having the flexibility to be implemented in various sites. The toolkit we developed contains a detailed library of branded graphics, as well as how and where they should be applied throughout a Nuance Communications workspace.
The facilities and acquisition department has found great efficiency in knowing what materials and graphics to use when and where. They rely on this repository of information as they acquire and renovate corporate offices around the world; the system has already been implemented in a 150,000 SF space in Canada, as well as offices in Florida and Shanghai.
