Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), in partnership with the City of Malden, seeks an artist or artist team to design flexible templates for a City Hall resource guide and wayfinding map along with a core suite of graphic assets (e.g., icons, color palettes, illustrations) that can be adapted across digital and physical channels such as websites and posters. The design should be built to accommodate multilingual text and layouts and meet accessibility and municipal communication standards. The goal is to make municipal resources clear, engaging, and accessible to residents through compelling and culturally responsive visual design.
The selected artist or team will collaborate with municipal staff and youth members to develop these designs. As part of the process, the artist or team will have the opportunity to host interactive activities at a municipal Office Hours in late October to gather local visual inspiration and co-create graphic assets with residents.
Questions?
Contact Nubes Chen at [email protected].
Key Dates
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- Call for Artists Application Release Date: September 28, 2026
- Application Due Date: October 12, 2026 at 11:59 PM
- Awards announced on or before October 19, 2026
- Grant agreement signed on or before October 23, 2026
- Final artwork to be completed [and installed] on or before February 26, 2027.
Click here to apply.
Read the full Call for Art here.
Read the Grant Agreement here.
Project Background
MAPC is partnering with the City of Malden on a project to to strengthen the City’s capacity for community engagement and foster deeper relationships with Malden communities. Through conversations with community partners and municipal staff, clear, structured, and consistent communication of municipal resources emerged as a critical need. Currently, community members are often unsure who to contact at City Hall or how to find the information they need. Similarly, community organizers often rely on personal connections to navigate services and involuntarily serve as informational intermediaries, which drains their time and capacity.
To address the gap, MAPC and City of Malden are piloting two connected initiatives:
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- Hosting municipal Office Hours to answer community member questions and support them in accessing City Hall resources
- Launch a comprehensive City Hall resource guide and wayfinding map, supported by an adaptable suite of visual assets.
Together, these efforts aim to establish lasting practices for accessible, responsive resource distribution.
The Creative Opportunity
We believe civic information should be welcoming, intuitive, and community centered. This project seeks to integrate creative and participatory design to make the resource guide and wayfinding map and related outreach materials visually appealing, approachable, and culturally responsive.
Building on earlier phases where local youth helped build content for the guide, the selected artist will continue the collaboration to shape the visual design. Meanwhile, the municipal Office Hours in late October will serve as live canvas, providing the selected artist an opportunity to lead interactive, hands-on activities where residents can contribute ideas, imagery, and visual inspiration for the final assets.