What is a good wayfinding signage？

Walking through the city streets, into shopping malls, schools, hospitals, airports, office buildings and other places, we can see a variety of wayfinding signage everywhere.It enables us to find our destination quickly and accurately in unfamiliar environments.

History of wayfinding signage can be traced back to the 1920s, when Austrian philosopher and sociologist Otto Neurath proposed Isotype (the International Textual Image Education System) and established standards for graphic design that have influenced public design ever since.

Subsequently, international events such as the Olympic Games brought the identifiers further into the public eye, such as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1972 Munich Olympics, etc. In the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Transportation commissioned AIGA to design the DOT graphic system, which was widely used in the public domain.

What are the criteria for wayfinding design? What is a good wayfinding design? Let me unlock it next.、

wayfinding systems first began in the West, in 1964 the Tokyo Olympics in Japan began to appear icon system, in 1972 the Munich Olympics in Germany on the basis of the standardisation of the icon system, forming a system used to date. The standard icon system we use in public washrooms can also be traced back to this system.

1.wayfinding awareness

In addition to function, we have to consider a design aesthetic, or the precision of scale relationships

How to understand it? To draw an analogy, in the early days, many brands had logos , perhaps the founders drew a graphic themselves and used it along, and the functionality was there. But nowadays, designers do the work to enhance the accuracy of the brand image.

The development of wayfinding design is the same, especially influenced by some good architectural works, we will slowly raise the demand for guide. How to do better wayfindign and more beautiful, is slowly only the awakening.

What is wayfinding sign? wayfinding sign can actually be traced back to ancient times. In the very early times, for example, today I flow through a river, I make a mark beside the river, when I come back, I can still find it, this is the most primitive state with the awareness of the function of guided tours, this mark is called ‘wayfinding signage’ in modern and precise terms. With the development of society, the scope of use of the wayfinding has become more extensive, especially in the public sphere, and the complexity has also arisen.

Many fire or safety exits are standardised and designers cannot alter the design of safety exits without permission. Only designated suppliers with relevant qualifications are allowed to make and produce them, and they need to produce and sell them in accordance with their standards, with strict criteria for fonts, font sizes and so on.

The wayfinding is not just a planar relationship, but also an elevational, three-dimensional aesthetic consideration.The differences are relatively obvious. Each country and region has its own language, and there are differences in the layout of the text.

Purely in terms of functionality, the specification of the functionality of the characters is clearer, Including systematic point position, the scale, the control of glyphs and so on.

For example, the letter "C" of the Helvetica family and the "C" of Futura use different openings, with the former easily identified as the letter "O" and the latter allowing the public to quickly identify the letter "C". The designer will study the guide font very carefully to achieve more reasonable and clear guidance.

It also varies in scale and complexity. The wayfindign is not just a flat scale relationship, but a façade, three-dimensional scale aesthetic consideration.

The wayfinding signage is a part of the space and should ideally be in harmony with the architectural space. For example, we see a lot of luminous letters, they are placed in the position, scale and architectural relationship is very comfortable. In a sense, it is a guide to the relationship between people and the space, like an instruction manual for walking into the space, and then you have to think about in which way this manual is going to exist. If you go to Switzerland or Germany, you will find that the installation structure and decomposition of their guides are very much in place, a bit like making a precise product.

This involves the integration aspect of the technology. First of all, the signage process is a very integrated technology. For example, in restaurants like KFC and McDonald's, their illuminated letters are removable and can be put back together again after removal.

Another point is that the project management process, whether commercial or public buildings, will set aside enough time for the design of the guide, so that the relationship between the building and the guide is very integrated. On the contrary, we have encountered many cases where the building is almost finished before the visual guide team intervenes, and there is no co-ordination with the building in advance. While visual guide is a very important soft service, people are still more concerned about hard facilities at this stage. This gap is a stage-by-stage problem.

 2. Fill the gaps in the wayfinding design industry

While we are working on the project, it is also a modular learning process，At present, the clients we serve are basically guide Awareness. Such customers include commercial complexes, commercial residences, public buildings (such as art museums), the original guide programme or design may not meet their needs. However, the customers just generate a sense of needing better guide design, but really how to do it and how to arrange it, they do not understand. So in turn, we will guide the clients through our own way of working, telling them the whole process of the guide design, how to interface with various departments, time node setting and so on.

In sorting out the operation process of wayfinding design.  Normally, we will need a list of guides from the client, but most of them can't give it.  For example, what are the necessary design elements for a hotel or property project?  For example, what are the necessary levels for an underground car park?  So in a way, we are spending more time on expanding and upgrading the content and process specification of the visual guide design, which is also a modular learning process while doing the project.  Because visual design is really a very systematic, complex, professional and comprehensive category, which is also encountered in large-scale public projects, most of the visual branding design companies can not or are not willing to directly intervene in the design of the reason.

There is an aesthetic foundation in planes and a better understanding of materials, craftsmanship, and construction aspects

At present, the type of guide design company is broadly divided into two types: the first is the transition from graphic design to the wayfinding design , this type of general lack of wayfinding signage process, technical knowledge.

The second type is upgraded from sign manufacturing factories, which knows more about craftsmanship but lacks knowledge about aesthetic perception.EZDsign's designers all come from design background, but from different fields. They have been engaged in the sign design and manufacturing industry for more than 3 years, some designers major in the direction of graphic visual design. Some of them focus on the direction of structural process. So our company is currently both graphic design team, there are teams that understand the process technology, while we also have their own factories. We have the aesthetics of the plane foundation, but also on the material, technology, construction links and other understanding, and at the same time can turn the design into a product!

There is a kind of company is to do decoration, free space design. There may be another type of company that does branding and also does guidance. Generally only do some small guide, such as cafes, small shops, art galleries such as small-scale guide design. However, they basically can not independently complete the guide design of large-scale complex and public buildings, and can only rely on specialized manufacturers to complete it.

Because large-scale guide design projects involve complex processes and rational analyses, they require the ability to work with multiple disciplines in order to communicate with multiple parties, including architectural design, interior design, landscape design, and the owner's side.

3. A good guide is like an instruction manual for the space

wayfinding signage is a guide to a person's relationship with a space that is comfortable, friendly and sensible. From the way of work and process, first of all, there should be a professional team involved, such as a project of architectural design, interior design, landscape design, their participation in the guide design is very important conditions, we need to co-ordinate the needs of the various professions, to grasp the time nodes of the project and supervise the late presentation, so that the various disciplines can be coordinated with each other.

Good wayfinding design is definitely from the brand's gene, output plane visual, understand the space architecture and material. After the conceptual design, we need to discuss with many parties, and to ensure the final presentation, we will also be involved in supervision and quality control. This is a relatively ideal way of working, and we particularly enjoy working on these types of projects.