Case Study // 2026
SDG Signage, Floor Branding and a Photo Moment for UNGA Week at UN Headquarters
The Brief & Challenge.
Every September the United Nations General Assembly brings heads of state, delegations and the world’s press to UN Headquarters on First Avenue. For UNGA week the Sustainable Development Goals needed to be visible across the campus: on the plaza where arrivals and broadcasts happen, in the General Assembly building lobby, and in the corridors where delegates and visitors pass all day.
The request came with a same-week turnaround. Design customization, fabrication, printing and a full installation had to happen inside a single week, on one of the most secured sites in the city, with access windows set by UN security rather than by us. The outdoor pieces had to stand up to wind and weather on an open plaza, the indoor pieces had to sit on terrazzo floors without fixings, and everything had to carry the SDG identity exactly, color for color.
The Pop Solution.
We designed, fabricated and installed a four-part SDG package for UNGA week, start to finish within the week it was requested.
3D freestanding signs. Oversized white dimensional SDGs letters with the full-color SDG wheel, mounted on a plinth base wrapped in all 17 goal icons, and a matching set of #UNGA letters for the plaza. Both were CNC cut and finished in our shop, weighted and engineered to stand freely outdoors at the edge of the East River.
Seventeen SDG pillars. A run of freestanding color-coded pillar signs, one per goal, numbered and captioned, lined up along the General Assembly lobby under the windows. Built as individual self-standing units so they could be spaced, re-sequenced or moved by the UN team during the week.
Photo frame moment. A white freestanding photo frame carrying the UN Sustainable Development Goals lockup and all 17 goal tiles, placed in a corridor so delegates and visitors could step into the frame between sessions.
Floor branding. SDG icon floor graphics applied across the plaza paving, produced with large format printing on outdoor-rated, slip-resistant media, leading from the arrival path to the signs.
Artwork customization, production, delivery, installation and strike were all handled by our team inside the UN’s access windows, the same event fabrication process we run for brand activations across Manhattan, compressed into a week.
Core Fabrications
THE OUTCOME.
The SDGs were impossible to miss for the whole of UNGA week: the plaza signs and floor graphics framed arrivals and stand-ups, the lobby pillars put all 17 goals in front of every delegate on the way in, and the photo frame gave visitors a moment to take home. Every piece was requested, built and installed within the same week.
For an institution working to a fixed calendar, this is what a fabrication partner should offer: a complete package, correct to the identity, delivered on a deadline that does not move.