How we did it.

Encore UD

Real Estate

Signage

Encore at University District is a brand-new purpose-built rental apartment building at 4055 Kovitz Avenue NW in Calgary, located steps from the University of Calgary and Alberta Children's Hospital. Targeting students and young professionals with fully furnished suites, all-inclusive pricing, co-living amenities, and a full fitness and lifestyle package, Encore needed construction site signage that could do serious leasing work while the building was still going up. Blair and Co. designed the hoarding graphics that introduced the Encore brand to the neighbourhood and drove prospective tenants to the website before a single suite was available to view.

A construction site is not a neutral backdrop. For a rental apartment targeting students and young professionals, the months between groundbreaking and possession are the most critical window in the leasing calendar, when early registrations are captured and waitlists are built before the first tour ever happens. The hoarding signage at Encore needed to do more than identify the project. It needed to communicate the brand, sell the lifestyle, and create enough curiosity and urgency that a person walking or driving past the site would visit rentencoreud.com before the building was finished. The site sits in University District, one of Calgary's most active and well-developed mixed-use communities, which means the audience walking past the hoarding every day is exactly the target tenant. The creative needed to speak directly to that audience in the tone and visual language that resonates with students and young professionals who have high design expectations and a clear sense of what a place to live should feel like.

Methodology

Blair and Co. developed the Encore hoarding creative as a full-width graphic system designed to read at speed from both pedestrian and vehicle traffic. The creative was structured around three clear messages that addressed the three things a prospective tenant needs to understand from a construction hoarding: what the building offers, what the lifestyle looks like, and where to go to find out more. The Rent Encore Live More headline led with the brand promise rather than a product description, positioning Encore as an experience rather than a transaction. The co-living amenities panel communicated the social and shared-space features of the building, including the study, gaming, and cooking lounge, which are key differentiators for the student and young professional segment. The Enhance Your Lifestyle panel carried the full amenity list covering the fitness facility, storage lockers, secured parcel room, secured underground parking, bike storage, pet and bike wash, and smart entry systems, giving prospective tenants the specific detail they need to make a comparison decision. The bold colour blocking in navy, lime green, and orange gave the hoarding the visual energy and contrast needed to stand out against the concrete and scaffolding of an active construction site while establishing the Encore brand palette in the market ahead of launch.

Process

Blair and Co. developed the hoarding graphic system from the brand brief, establishing the colour palette, typography, and content hierarchy before laying out the full-width panel. The three-section structure was designed to work as a unified composition when viewed as a whole, while each panel was also legible and self-contained for viewers who only had time to read one section in passing. Photography selection focused on a warm, social, in-context scene that showed the co-living lifestyle rather than a staged apartment shot, giving prospective tenants an immediate sense of who Encore is for. The website URL was integrated into both the headline panel and the amenities panel to maximise conversion opportunity across the full width of the hoarding. The artwork was prepared to large-format print specification and delivered fabrication-ready for installation on the construction hoarding at the Kovitz Avenue site.

Outcome

The Encore site hoarding gave the building a professional, energetic brand presence in the University District community during the full construction period, turning a construction fence into a working leasing and brand-building tool. The bold colour treatment and clear message hierarchy ensured the creative communicated effectively to pedestrian and vehicle traffic across the full range of viewing distances and speeds. The hoarding supported the pre-leasing campaign by driving registration traffic to rentencoreud.com from the day it went up, building the early interest list that underpins a successful apartment lease-up ahead of possession.

Skills Used

Construction Hoarding Design
Large-Format Signage
Environmental Graphic Design
Rental Marketing Creative
Brand Identity Application
Copywriting
Lifestyle Photography Selection
Colour Blocking and Palette Development
Information Hierarchy Design
Large-Format Print Specification
Fabrication-Ready File Preparation
Pre-Leasing Campaign Creative

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