For over 50 years, a sign stood at the corner of Imperial Avenue and Main Street, welcoming people to El Segundo. It did its job quietly, marking the boundary between one city and the next, but it didn't say much about what made this place special. In December 2024, that changed.
On December 17th, the city unveiled a new monument sign that reimagines what a gateway can be. The letters of "El Segundo" rise bold and bright, but look closer and each one tells a story. Blue butterflies flutter through the E. The aerospace industry's legacy gleams in the L. The beach curves through the S. Landmarks and icons fill every letter, each image chosen to capture something essential about the city's identity and aspirations.
The design, created by Hirsch & Associates and fabricated by Front Signs, drew inspiration from vintage postcards—those colorful greetings that used to say "wish you were here" in bold, playful letters. But this isn't nostalgia for its own sake. The sign is thoroughly modern, equipped with programmable LEDs that can shift colors and illuminate the letters in different ways depending on the occasion, the season, or the message the city wants to send.
What makes the project remarkable is how it came together. City leaders and local volunteers worked alongside the designers, shaping the artwork through extensive community engagement. People shared what El Segundo meant to them, what images captured their experience of the place, what they wanted visitors to see first. The result is a sign that truly belongs to the community, reflecting not just official branding but genuine collective identity.
But the physical sign is only the beginning. Reality Experience Design created an AR experience that transforms the monument from a static marker into an interactive story. When visitors point their phones at the sign and activate the Snap Lens, digital effects and animations overlay the physical structure. The butterflies come alive. The aerospace imagery takes flight. The whole sign becomes a portal into El Segundo's history, ecosystem, and vision for the future.
The AR layer does something crucial: it sparks curiosity at the exact moment people arrive. Instead of just passing a sign, visitors encounter an invitation to explore, to learn, to engage with the city before they've even parked their car. It's placemaking at its most immediate, turning the threshold into an experience.
This entryway AR experience is part of the broader campaign to make El Segundo an "AR City," a vision realized through the partnership between El Segundo Art Walk (ESAW), Reality Experience Design, and Snap Inc. The sign joins murals, mosaics, and other public art pieces on a citywide AR map, each location offering its own digital layer of meaning and interaction.
For a city that's always been defined by innovation—from its aerospace industry to its creative community—the new sign is a perfect statement of intent. It honors the past with imagery that celebrates local heritage. It embraces the present with contemporary design and LED technology. And it points toward the future with AR that invites everyone to see the city through new eyes.
The old sign served its purpose for half a century, marking the boundary and welcoming people in. The new one does more. It tells you who El Segundo is, what it values, where it's been, and where it's going. It invites you not just to visit but to engage, not just to see but to discover.
And in a world where first impressions happen fast, that matters. The sign at Imperial and Main isn't just announcing a city anymore. It's introducing it, celebrating it, and inviting everyone who passes through to become part of its story—one illuminated letter, one animated butterfly, one AR experience at a time.
El Segundo has always been a city that thinks differently. Now, from the moment you arrive, the gateway itself proves it.
