What is the Directional signage design?

Directional Signage Design

Directional signage is designed to open up the hidden structures of a building or urban space and make them visible to the visitor.

“The design of directional signage” is an important part of the contemporary design field, which is based on the planning and design of coherent signage systems, incorporating maps, signs, directional markers, and detailed clues throughout the built environment, to help people find their way in different cultural and geographical environments.

What is Directional Signage?

Directional signage is a way to help people understand how to get from one place to another and how to get back, which in layman's terms is to solve the problem of “where to go? How to go? Are we there yet?” questions. “Where to go? How to go? Arrived or not? also corresponds to three types of directional signage: Primary directional signage, secondary directional signage, and tertiary directional signage.

1. Primary directional signage

Primary directional signage provide an overview of the larger environment, helping people to construct a mental map of where they are relative to this environment and to determine subsequent directions.

2. Secondary directional signage

Secondary directional signage guides visitors or vehicles to a location. It includes guidance messages or other sign types with directional instructions.

3. Tertiary directional signage.

Tertiary directional signage indicate that people have arrived at a place.

In addition to these three types of directional signage, there is also a large category of warning and informational signage, which is used to warn of area limitations, indicate hazards and explain rules and regulations. These four types of signs, together in a unified framework to form a complete visual directional signage system.

What is included in the directional signage system?

A visual directional signage system consists of information construction, visual design, and planning and design.

1.Information construction

Clear and logical construction of information is a key factor in the success of visual directional signage. How users perceive and interpret information, how to group information, how to determine the degree of clarity of the information and how to plan the information are key factors affecting the ability of users to interpret information.

2. Planning and design

In the planning and design of the directional signage system, the process of users arriving at the destination from the starting point is the process of continuous decision-making and confirmation. Each decision point may be a road intersection, a building's intersection point or a walkway's intersection point. Users in each decision point location through the directional signage to quickly confirm the direction of the destination, after arriving at the destination through the location directional signage to confirm whether to arrive. Good directional signage planning should do: 1, signage level clear, 2, signage location obvious; 3, directional information clear. Avoid the appearance of signs everywhere, so that the signs in the application environment as far as possible to do “should sometimes have, should be no time”.

By analyzing the pedestrian flow on the plan, the position of each decision node and the hierarchical relationship will be clearly visible. According to the decision-making nodes of the sorting for the planning and arrangement of directional signage, so that the location of the signs is obvious, the guidance is continuous, and the number is reasonable.

Decision Node Analysis Diagram

Marker location plan

3. Visual design

a. Range of human visual field

If a visually functional person keeps his head still, his average field of vision is roughly 124 degrees in the parallel direction and 120 degrees in the vertical direction. In order to allow people to easily read directional signage , the height and distance of the information need to be carefully laid out.

People usually decide the reading distance of directional signage according to the placement of the sign - above the field of view or horizontally in the field of view. For signs above the field of view, the usual reading distance is 4-6 meters to avoid neck discomfort caused by picking up a large head; for signs oriented horizontally, the usual reading distance is 1-2 meters.

b. Criteria for legibility of text

In any given project, there should be a full set of font sizes to respond to the different project parameters. Messages may appear on floors, walls or ceilings, but wherever they are, there are varying requirements for reading distance. Indicative messages mounted on the floor are either flush with the eye level, so that they can be read close by, or they are designed to be high enough to be read at a distance.

In order to ensure that the text on the logo is clearly visible, the contrast between the text and the background color should be sharp enough. Ordinary standard is the foreground color and background color between the contrast value can not be less than 70%.

To summarize, directional signage design is a way to help people orient themselves in space and identify the way forward in the actual environment. It helps people to familiarize themselves with the environment and communicate better with the environment with concise information prompts, thus creating a more coherent, smooth and uplifting user experience.

Some of the images/content in this article may be sourced from the internet. If there is any infringement, please contact the author.