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"Wayfinding 101"
A well designed layout makes signs more effective.
Ok. One of the things that drives us crazy is directional signs that have columns of arrows. The problem is that the arrows act as bullets—as in a list of “bullet points”—rather than essential information. All layouts shown here do, technically, work. Some work better than others. Read [...]
Last fall, while doing a client project survey, we came across this sign. If ever there were mixed messages… Needless to say that when we showed this photo to the client they were somewhat embarrassed (especially given the state of America’s general physical fitness).
Learning points:
Always consider a sign’s context. After [...]
Signage plays an important part of wayfinding—but there’s more…
By John Muhlhausen
Even though signage plays an important role in wayfinding, the process doesn’t rely exclusively on signs.
The term “wayfinding” was first used in 1960 by architect Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City, where he referred to maps, street numbers, directional signs [...]
We’ve seen a couple of signs around town lately that left us scratching our heads. Both instances got us to thinking how very important it is to craft sign messages with care.
Look at these two photos:
We’ve seen these and similar signs before, and hadn’t paid much attention. But we got to thinking, what [...]
Kyle Reath, one our colleagues in the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD), shared with us this photo from an airport somewhere in Asia. If we saw this sign we would probably fall on the floor laughing so hard that security would have to be called to clear us away for causing [...]
