Drivers coming through Yelm will have an easier time navigating the city thanks to new poles and wayfinding signs that will be installed.

Yelm Public Services Director Cody Colt said the signs are geared toward tourists or those who are not familiar with the city.

“People who have lived here a while know where a lot of things are since it’s a small town, but these new wayfinding signs are for non-locals to know where the park, movie theater and other general things are,” Colt said. “It’s really important with the amount of events that are going to happen, starting really in May. People may not know where that event is or go to the wrong park.”

Several steel signs that aim to be both aesthetically pleasing and informative were ordered from Rainier-based Design N Signs LLC.

Public Services Administrative Assistant Becky Jackson worked to create the design with the business, which features a Yelm-themed sign that includes a mountain.

“It was a pretty big process,” said Jon Fisher of Design N Signs LCC. “We’re a custom sign company and we will virtually take on any job. It’s nice when you can see a steel project come together as it’s a pretty permanent thing.”

It’s taken about six months of design work and fabrication of the powder coated black poles that feature the sign holders. Design N Signs had Aaron Kooley, and his son Nathan, of Aaron's CNC Plasma Cutting, undertake the heavy metal fabrication.

“(Nathan) is so smart. A little prodigy. They’re good friends of ours and Aaron is just a good guy and a longtime veteran of fabrication,” Fisher said. 

The signs will be placed along the major routes in the city and in strategic areas so they can guide people to the proper locations.

“Our plan is to install them as soon as weather conditions improve so we can do the concrete work,” Colt said. “We should have them installed by summer.”

Colt said when the poles go up, there could be a brief period before the wayfinding part of the signs are installed. The project was paid for by the city which applied for money through the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee two years ago. With the onset of the pandemic, they knew events wouldn’t be happening for a while so they held off until 2022.

“It’s a great feature and theme for Yelm and we are going to use a similar design moving forward for our signs in parks and around town,” Colt said, adding they have enjoyed working with Design N Signs.

Fisher’s wife Monique said the duo have been blown away by the support of their local business by the surrounding community. She said the pandemic taught a lot of people how important small, local businesses are. Monique said they are appreciative of the city, who took a chance on them to bring the project to fruition.

Jon Fisher added “the magnitude of the project hit when we were ordering the steel and seeing how much work went into fabricating something like this. It’s a cool project and it’s a great feeling being considered as a fairly new local company. There are really good people over there in the city.”

For Design N Signs, big projects like this happen about once a year, but more of their work can be found on their website at designnsigns.com.

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Thank you so much for the great article...

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