New direction
for a regional gateway

Hamilton Airport has come a long way since the 1930s when it was known as a “flying paddock”. Today it boasts the fourth-longest commercial runway in the country, providing a warm welcome to the central North Island’s millions of tourists and business travellers.

A major development and rebrand necessitated a new direction for the signage and wayfinding. Given Diadem’s extensive airport experience and New Zealand resources, our team was engaged in the project. This began by defining user journeys, functional requirements and strategic principles.

The architecture for the airport terminal was conceived as a gateway, (a waharoa) or threshold. This concept spoke to a place bringing people together, welcoming or saying farewell.

As the airport’s new interior design uses a rich palette of materials, finishes and colours, our signage palette was designed in black and white to avoid any visual competition in the busy terminals.

In addition to incorporating cultural narratives, the brand’s “notch” was also applied to design elements across the signage. Graphic relationships between the notch, arrows, pictograms, English and Te Reo Māori were all carefully considered for each touchpoint.