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T Y P O G R A P H Y, C O L O R , A N D S Y M B O L S I N WAY F I N D I N G D E S I G N
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
IN TRANSIT
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TYPOGRAPHY, COLOR, AND SYMBOLS IN WAYFINDING
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
IN TRANSIT
IN TRANSIT IN TRANSIT: Typography, Color, and Symbols in Wayfinding
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Copyright Š 2014 MARK⠄ed Type Conference All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced,
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stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission of copyright holder. Printed in the United States.
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TO ALL THOSE WHO DEDICATE THEIR LIVES TO DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, ENGINEERING, AND PUBLIC SAFETY.
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ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
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IN TRANSIT
CONTENTS
COLOPHON
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ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
SCIENCE OF SYMBOLS
CHAPTER THREE
COLORING ENVIRONMENTS
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MARK/ed
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CHAPTER TWO
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IN TRANSIT
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IN TRANSIT IN TRANSIT is an exploration of the history and use of typography, color, and symbols in wayfinding design, a discipline that is best described as a mix of graphic design, environmental design, architecture, and civil engineering.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
Around the world, typography is used to provide information to help guide people in their daily lives. On highways, shopping malls, schools, and other public environments where people go about their daily routine, typography takes shape in wayfinding design to enhance how a space is experienced through signage.
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IN TRANSIT
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ENGINEERING TYPE
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
CHAPTER ONE
IN TRANSIT
UNDERSTANDING TYPOGRAPHY
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Looking at the evolution of environmental graphic design over the past four decades, it comes obvious that great typography dominates many successful projects.
AA 15 The earliest evidence of wayfinding design survives in the form of architectural inscriptions that help identify buildings and monuments as important landmarks or destinations. The legacy of carved letterforms, pictographs, and imagery is a story unto itself, a journey through space and time. These “signs” were produced by artisans to communicate civic messages or religious teachings. The ancient Egyptians ruling classes used hieroglyphics to celebrate the accomplishments of royalty and their great dynasties. During the classical period, the Romans created the earliest alphabet, which is still visible on thousands of public buildings and monuments. A Roman inscription is bold, strong, and clear—a indelible mark intended to rally the subjects of a vast empire. Likewise, the Mayans illustrated narratives of conquest and a power on their temples and stelae using a unique written language and number system. In Europe, the lettering on tombs inside some Gothic cathedrals complements the detailed tracery of part of the architecture and mirrors the curvilinear calligraphy of the monks recording sacred knowledge in the Middle Ages.
During the twentieth century, when corporate moguls commissioned increasingly tall buildings and architects shaped early skyscrapers, type was often integrated into the building fabric. Names were intended for permanence were either inscribed directly onto façades or incorporated into metalwork and other decorative detailing on exteriors and interiors. This lettering technique each complemented the artistic and architectural style of the buildings.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
During the rise of the modern capitalist industrial era throughout Europe and North America, commercial and civic signs competed for attention in the public landscape. The teeming mid-century urban streetscape of New York and other large American cities became an extraordinary catalog of signs plastered across the façades of buildings advertising the enterprises within. Their ever unique letterforms were rarely uniform; instead their commercial letterers drew them from scratch to reflect the style of the decade and tastes of the owner, often forcing the designs to fit a given space. Though this typographic cacophony of what may seem a visual feast to today’s audience, it was considered an eyesore at the time, the sign of a strong mercantile society that has begun to run amok.
IN TRANSIT
LEGIBILITY OF TYPE
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The winner of the study is Wayfinding Sans速 typeface. Sven Neumann writes in his final report that Wayfinding Sans速 could be read earlier than any other typeface in all test situations. It was not only more legible than DIN 1451, which is used on the German road signs, but performed even better than Linotype Frutiger, which is one of the most used signage typefaces, especially for airport signage systems.
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S T U D I E D T Y P E FA C E S DYNAMIC Wayfinding Sans Frutiger P22 Johnston Underground STATIC
THE TOP 5
Arial DIN Mittelschrift
WAYFINDING SANS
AMERICAN Franklin Gothic GEOMETRIC
FRUTIGER LT STD
Futura SERIF Garamond Premier Pro
JOHNSTON UNDERGROUND
Swift LT Std
ARIAL
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
DIN MITTELSCHRIFT
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WAYFINDING DESIGN TAKES A BUSTLING CITY AND ORGANIZES IT FOR THE PEOPLE.
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ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
IN TRANSIT
By the late twentieth century, facilities sprawled rapidly and demand for comprehensive directional sign systems grew. Visitors required increasingly sophisticated graphic signals and prompts to find their way through ever larger and even more complex public spaces. During these current times, cities, corporations, public events, or transportation systems not only need that they need these wayfinding programs to communicate the publics information clearly and go directly, but also to express a brands image that distinguishes them from the competition. Some of the important signage demands have even become more complicated, but now typographic options are so limitless, offering exciting opportunities.
Before designing a typeface for the purpose of wayfinding, we ask for two types of feedback from both the client or designer who represents them. The first is emotional or psychological, such as what qualities characterize the client’s important organization. For the second, more importantly, is technical, which addresses all the practical aspects of the project. Within indoor public spaces, they often need illuminated signs, and backlighting some signs can wreak havoc with the interior spaces of some of the letterforms. Although many sign systems appear to use only a single font, they actually rely on subtle variations of it in order to present a unified typographic voice for different contexts, the sign material choices, and locations.
The beginning of the design process, of wayfinding, is the time to explore type families and select the appropriate typeface to suit a specific site and context. It is in some ways difficult to imagine today that in the 1960s and '70s a single typeface, Helvetica, was used almost exclusively for most sign systems. Classically trained graphic designers otherwise relied on a vocabulary from about a dozen “acceptable� typefaces. Evolving tastes, the broadening of cultural and social perspectives, and personal computers loaded with digital type soon changed everything. With type fonts now numbering in the thousands, the wayfinding designer has to develop an even more discerning eye to balance are the issues of form versus function.
Our typeface design for Radio City Music Hall, in New York City, was inspired by the art deco signage that is unique to this site. This historic precedent was very helpful, but the original artists never designed a full alphabet. As a response we created a font based on these handmade fragments and added punctuation, numbers, and other missing characters. The challenge was to capture the initial spirit of the original lettering in a more contemporary, systematic typeface that meets Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. In the end we drew two fonts, one very narrow typeface and the other very wide, in order to allow for words of different lengths to be set on signs of a given size. A well-designed typographic system typically lets the typeface do the heavy lifting: any need for manual intervention points to a problem or problems with the font itself.
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Typefaces have specific personalities and suggest certain associations in such as: Bembo seems traditional; Meta appears crisp and modern; Ziggurat is playful. When selecting a typeface for wayfinding, the designer must consider all aspects of how it will be used: For example, will it appear on a carved inscription, as dimensional letters, on an illuminated board, or on a map? Will it guide drivers on a highway, students through a university, or diners to a restaurant? The experienced designer instinctively understands the typographic requirements of a project and selects a typeface that is both appropriate and communicative.
Letterspacing was more of an art thirty years ago, when the alphabets used by designers existed solely as physical artifacts that had to be carefully applied to specific media, such as photostats pasted on cardboard or the certain letters mounted on walls. Contemporary fonts must be meticulously designed if they are to reproduce the level of craftsmanship without active involvement from a designer. And kerning is a good case in point: we take pride in figuring out every possible letter combination in advance, even obscure pairs, like y and q, to make sure they will mesh very properly. This can add up to an extraordinary number of possible types of combinations: 676 for capital letters alone, and then caps to lowercase, lowercase to lowercase, and even the spacing between each of the punctuation marks.
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Legibility relies as much on the application of a typeface as it does on the design of the individual letters. We test our designs in a variety of situations in order to examine mechanics—the consistency, the specific color (varying in tones of gray formed by texture of type), and fit. Legibility is certainly paramount, but it is often difficult to measure legibility scientifically. We have yet to see a really scientific, peer-reviewed, double-blind legibility study. In almost every signage project starts with their client, and most often there is an architect, which requests an all-uppercase solution, as if each of the capital letters are somehow sturdier and safer! However, the reality is that lowercase letters are essential for text readability because they produce more distinctive word shapes, in which is there are especially important throughout signage, where the areas environment factors come into play. For instance, an upper- and lowercase highway sign can often be read even when a bridge or other obstacles obscures the top half of the line.
What wayfinding designers ignore at their very own peril is considering the breadth of a type family. A single sans serif may be useful for a handsome sign prototype for which you can cherry-pick the copy, but it doesn’t always anticipate a later need to introduce secondary text or to distinguish one type of sign from another. A signage program that is mated to the printed communications requires even more typographic versatility, as do less of the glamorous signs like elevator indicators, which designers tend to ignore. My advice in picking a typeface for wayfinding is to try to plan ahead, or better yet, pick a typeface that plans ahead.
These general categories provide one way to understand the relative sizes of letterforms and just how they are used: reading, walking, driving, and environment. Reading the letters that are small enough to be used for text and the captions on an orientation-map kiosks or for narrative paragraphs on interpretive signs. Walking letters are of a size suitable for directional messages that guide pedestrians on city streets or in interior public spaces. Driving letters are large enough to be seen by drivers looking for directions or information. Several factors affecting these scale decisions for vehicular signage, such as the viewer’s distance from the sign and driving speed, must be studied and then tested during the design process. The environment letterforms are superscaled for maximum effect in busy urban streets, roads, interstates, or on highways.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
The love of handmade letters is due in partly to the fact that food artisans there have always understood that both the microperspective of the certain lettering and the macroperspective of the words. For the type designer, nothing surpasses the envisioning of a holistic typographic in concept for a specific situation where lettering is integrated with a design. The creation of custom typefaces for signage programs can be impractical, some projects there’s demand it. In this case, in the extreme extant letters were so marvelous that building upon them was too good an opportunity to pass up.
By establishing the correct scale and the arrangement of lettering for messages is key to good wayfinding design. The designer’s main goal is to make the sign system legible and flexible enough to accommodate a series of messages without looking confusing or chaotic. Having selected a typeface, the designer must then decide its size and weight. Context is critical in type size for signage.
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It happens to the best of us. As we age, our eye’s vision diminishes. Eye pupils tend to shrink, allowing less light to enter into the eyes, resulting in dimmed distortion of colors. The eyes lose elasticity, reducing our vision. It’s more than a nuisance. It’s a problem for integrated marketers designing signage that must be visible to older generations. Thirteen percent of the U.S. population is 65 or older. According to the United States Census Bureau, this population is projected to more than double by 2060. Marketers, take note: You must create signage that caters to the unique challenges experienced by the aging eye. The easiest way to do this is to select fonts that are easy on the eyes, and the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a starting point. The Americans with Disabilities Act standards prescribe body-width to height and stroke-width to height ratios for the use of having the appropriate typefaces in signage systems. The recommendations include some well-known typefaces such as the following: Bodoni, Century Schoolbook, Frutiger Bold, Futura Heavy, Garamond Semibold, Glypha Roman, Helvetica Bold, Syntax Bold, Times New Roman, and Univers 65. However, the integrated marketers should look beyond the ADA guidelines to assess their audiences’ needs in order to see them. “Even though many typefaces do meet the requirements of the ADA, they may not all function well with the aging eye” cautions Paul Nini, a known visual communications designer in the United States. “In general, sans serif faces appear to be the most readable. Most typographic designers must undertake a more comprehensive study of this subject and develop typefaces that work well with the common vision problems of the aging population.”
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Beyond typeface selection, signage also must be placed at an accessible point and viewing height as well as be adequately illuminated to be functional for the aging eye.
TYPOGRAPHY + SIGHT
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ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
IN TRANSIT
H E LV E T I C A N E U E VS. FF DIN
The typeface Helvetica was designed in 1957 by Swiss designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman as a typeface that would compete with ever popular Akzidenz-Grotesk. In 1931 the DIN institute published DIN 1451 which was later revised by Albert-Jan Pool introducing FF DIN. It was to be used in the areas of signage, traffic signs, wayfinding, lettering on technical drawings and technical documentation all over Germany. Since their creation, both typefaces have become two of the most widely used typefaces in all fields of design. This infographic defines the differences between Helvetica Neue and FF DIN that make them readable and unique.
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H E LV E T I C A N E U E
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SIMILAR TO DIN, HELVETICA HAS A TALL X-HEIGHT FOR EASIER READABILITY
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TWO STORY LOWERCASE A WITH CURVES OF BOWL AND STEM
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ROUNDED OFF SQUARE TAIL OF R, OPPOSED TO THE DIN’S STRAIGHT LEG
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FF DIN
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SIMILAR TO HELVETICA, DIN HAS A TALL X-HEIGHT FOR EASIER READABILITY
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TWO STORIED LOWERCASE A WITH STRAIGHT SPUR
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STRAIGHT LEG OF UPPERCASE R, OPPOSED TO THAT OF HELVETICA
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
B
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02
COLORING ENVIRONMENTS
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
C H A P T E R T WO
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IMPORTANCE OF COLOR
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To produce effective wayfinding solutions, designers must understand how to work with color on a case-by-case basis rather than relying on formulas.
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More recently, color has come to be very associated closely with politics. In the past few election cycles, Americans have heard a lot about red states (Republican, mostly conservative) and blue (Democratic, mostly liberal). This color shorthand sums up political allegiances and rallies people, but it can also be divisive. Since the early twentieth century, red has denoted Communist affiliation. While an actual Green political party currently exists, the term also stands for a global movement dedicated to environmental awareness and climate concern.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
Colors also signal cultural or patriotic nationalism. In the case of flags, minor layout variations can change what a color or color combination represents. The red, white, and blue of our Stars and Stripes symbolize the United States, for instance, however in the context of the Union Jack, these colors stand for the United Kingdom, our former ruler and now longtime ally. Depending on the flag layout, red and white can identify Canada, Switzerland, or even Denmark. To make matters more complicated, minor layout modifications of the Swiss red cross on a white field turns it either in to the flag of St. George, or a signal for the arrival of humanitarian and medical aid.
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Color changes can also mark the passage of months. In the growing North American marketplace, many of the greeting card publishers and retailers roll out a color calendar in sync with seasons and holidays such as Valentine’s Day (red and pink), Easter (pastels), St. Patrick’s Day (green), Halloween (black and orange), and Christmas (green and red). Lighting designers for the Empire State Building have taken this concept further, into the urban sky. The landmark’s elegant spire is an eye-catching beacon that glows with iconic colors to celebrate holidays and special events— everything from the Gay Pride Day to the New York Giants’ spectacular 2008 Super Bowl victory. Colors have become fundamental for wayfinding early in the twentieth century when American traffic engineers develop a standardized color-signal vocabulary to impose order in increasingly chaotic vehicular roadways. The basic palette, green, yellow, and red, are now utilized around the world for traffic lights. Universally understood and applied, these color standards form the basis for the American traffic signage system, defined in the known Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and their influence safety by instantly conveying vital information to pedestrians and drivers alike.
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While color meaning informs wayfinding, it is essential for designers to have a working knowledge of color mechanics beyond the basics. Everyone is familiar with the rainbow spectrum which defined by Sir Isaac Newton—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—and that pairs of the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) produce secondary colors (purple, green, and orange), while all three primaries together make black. In the case of projected rather than the reflected light, the primary color palette changes red, green, and blue. Overlapping primaries results in any of either natural or synthesized white light.
Colors are also distinguished by three properties: hue, intensity, and value. The hue refers to color variation, such as pure redness or greenness. The intensity, the saturation or density of a color. Value refers to its relative lightness or darkness. Understanding these properties can enable the designer to control a palette for legibility and to project the desired meanings. For example, when in assembling an appropriate set of colors for coding purposes, it is helpful to pick colors of similar value so they fit together well as a set. Color intensity affects legibility: on a sign, contrasting intensities differentiate between the type and panel colors, as in any figure⁄field relationship. Hue selection usually affects a design’s overall appropriateness and meaning for a given context—it is important that a designer choose colors that best represent a building or site’s function and context. A designer familiar with these will be able to fluidly manipulate color and achieve the preferred results. As a practical matter, designers must be conversant with lighting technology, industry color standards, and there is computer software in order to identify, present, test, and specify exact colors for signage and other applications. The computer offers amazing ways to explore the riches of the spectrum, such as instant access to color swatch libraries and sophisticated color selection software. The Pantone Matching System is probably the most pervasive and comprehensive tool for identifying colors on the computer, for print, and for other media. Most wayfinding for most designers are familiar with PMS numbers, organized by hue, value, and intensity. It is also possible to use the computer’s color-spectrum window is to choose special spot colors. These color selections can be further altered by tinting or by changing the CMYK process colors.
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Choosing the right colors for a wayfinding project results from knowing how to balance art and science. Art is the creative spark that inspires the designer to find interesting, comfortable, or surprising color combinations for memorable design solutions. Science ensures that those colors will physically work together for a particular project. A university wayfinding system often employs a cherished set of school colors, whereas practicality and safety dictate signage color for hospitals and subways. In retail design the sky’s the limit—often the more colors, the better. Colors that make good sense in Miami Beach probably will not seem right in New York City. In reality there are no hard and fast rules, and the best designers break rules all the time. Developing a complex wayfinding system is collaborative. As it usually involves may players and interests, it is best to steer the conversation away from matters of personal taste to objective matters of colort function. With the experience, the designer learns how to work with their client to arrive at successful choices, explaining why color choices were made, how they work in their context, and the effect that is desired by the designer and client.
Color coding can also designate function. The signage system developed for New York and New Jersey airports uses color fields to code messages in a different way, somewhat akin to highway signing. For example, yellow signs present directions related to air travel, terminals, gates, and baggage claim areas; green signs signal the way to ground transportation services like taxis, rental cars, and public transit; and the black fields that mark airport amenities, such as restrooms, information, or restaurants. Color is not only a means to simplify users’ perception of a place and provide prompts to guide them where they are going, but it can also breathe new life into an otherwise utilitarian design. Today’s digital-reproduction methods and sophisticated surface options offer many unlimited choices; final color selection is ultimately up to each designer’s best judgment. Although the range of colors available might seem daunting at first, be confident that the careful planning and testing will help identify ones that are right.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
What are tangible uses of color for wayfinding? The most obvious, color coding, has advanced far beyond the Yellow Brick Road or those ineffective pathways on the hospital floor. Today in most color-coding strategies they either define distinct areas within a space or provide a basis for the understanding the organization of a complex facility.
The simplest wayfinding systems differentiate zones, such as the levels of a multistory parking garage, utilize some numbers, colors, and symbols. Within other systems help people visualize navigation that is larger or more complicated spaces, such as urban districts or in the buildings in a large medical center. For instance, in Downtown Baltimore, Maryland’s pedestrian wayfinding system uses signs with colored panels to identify the seven districts of the downtown area. These signs reinforce the You Are Here quality of the system, helping visitors identify their location and sense the boundaries of a given neighborhood.
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IN TRANSIT
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COLOR IS A PRIMAL LANGUAGE OFTEN UNDERUTILIZED AND TREATED MERELY AS DECOR.
IN TRANSIT
ROAD SIGN COLORS
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In Europe, the United States, and other western cultures, these colors are most often used on the expressways, motorways, and roads with varying purposes.
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BLUE
YELLOW
GREEN
WHITE
U N I T E D S TAT E S
USED FOR SIGNAGE ON M O S T M O T O R WAY S , E X P R E S S WAY S , A N D P R I M A RY R O A D S .
T O I N D I C AT E I N F O R M AT I O N , P O I N T S O F I N T E R E S T, PA R K I N G , E T C .
U S E D O N WA R N I N G S I G N S AND CONTRUCTION
U S E D O N WA R N I N G S I G NS AND CONTRUCTION
USED AS BORDER ON WHITE BACKGROUNDS FOR WA R N I N G S I G N S .
U S E D T O I N D I C AT E DANGER, HENCE “STOP”, “GIVE WAY ” , E T C .
U S E D O N S O M E P R I M A RY R O A D S A N D M O T O R WAY S , DEPENDING ON T H E C O U N T RY.
USED FOR DIRECTIONAL SIGNS ON MOST R O A D S , H I G H WAY S , A N D I N T E R S TAT E S .
USED FOR DIRECTIONAL SIGNS ON MOST R O A D S , H I G H WAY S , A N D I N T E R S TAT E S .
I N D I C AT E S S P E E D L I M I T ON M O S T R O A D S , H I G H WAY S, A N D I N T E R S TAT E S .
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
RED
EUROPE
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The use of color in wayfinding is an important aspect of all types of design in publicly accessed places such as train stations, airports, and hospitals. Color works as an informational tool for people to successfully find their way from point A to point B. Wayfinding is the process through which people to find their way by using informational support such as lighting, signage and architectural guidance and color is a large part of successful wayfinding which can be measured by how easily visitors or travelers navigated the route to get to where they were going. An efficient wayfinding system should allow visitors to identify their current location and their destinations, be confident they are traveling the right way, and know where to exit safely in the event of an emergency. Color is beneficial to wayfinding design of large architectural in spaces as it can emphasise specific features or locations. The colour contrast between background and text or pictogram is the most important factor for readability. White text against dark backgrounds is optimal, while coloured text on bright backgrounds is not recommended. Color is an excellent communication tool between visitors and the objects around them. Color helps people to build images and create visual memory in foreign environments. They are often used to encode and recognise processes and locations throughout the system.
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In addition, stationary pubic establishments, colour is also beneficial for public systems such as the bus transportation. Seoul, South Korea has a color-coded transport system with different coloured buses to indicate which direction passengers are heading. This makes it very much easier for tourists to find appropriate bus rather than looking for a small number or a written sign on a moving bus
COLOR AS A LANGUAGE
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ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
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IN TRANSIT
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SCIENCE OF SYMBOLS
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
CHAPTER THREE
IN TRANSIT
THE LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLS
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“It is in terms of symbolic, concrete forms that the designer ultimately realizes his perceptions and experiences, and it is in a world of symbols that the average man lives. The symbol thus becomes a common language between artist and spectator” — Paul Rand, Thoughts On Design
AA 41 Wayfinding systems are often created for large, complex, and sometimes confusing environments from almost all shopping malls to sports arenas. That maybe people may be coming from different places and headed in many directions, looking for multiple destinations. While the hundreds of signs may be necessary to provide directions in such environments, a few well-chosen symbols can eliminate the unnecessary information. Symbols also provide a pictorial representation of a place, a service, or an action. The man and woman icons for public bathrooms are probably the most pervasive public symbols. Regional, cultural, and the artistic variations make a wide spectrum of images for those icons, but the basic message is the same. Symbols refer to these iconic graphic devices. These are not to be confused with logos, which can often look like symbols but refer instead to business entities or organizations.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
There are some classic examples of public places where symbols are essential and effective. In a rather large and busy European train station where people of many languages regularly pass through certain symbols help guide people to the information booth or the food services. Symbols are used everywhere at each of the Olympics, directing people to different sport venues and to public services. In locations where visitors come from many countries or cultures, symbols are the most common languages that speaks to everyone. In the largest hospital in the United States, these symbols aid many different groups of people; distressed English speakers, the increasingly diverse populations that inhabit American cities, and international customers who have traveled across the globe to get health care at these great institutions can all decipher the language of these symbols.
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AIGA/DOT PICTOGRAMS These are nine of fifty symbols from the collection of AIGA â „ DOT pictorams that were initially created in collaboration with Roger Cook and Don Shanosky. These pictograms were designed with the criteria
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to be internationally recoganizble and have a resistance to vandalism.
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1 NO SMOKING 2 TELEPHONE 3 TRAIN
4 STAIRS 5 UNISEX 6 HANDICAP
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7 AIRPLANE 8 SHIP 9 ESCALATOR
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The most basic role of symbols is to identify services available in airports, train stations, shopping malls, office buildings, hospitals, and other public places where people gather. These symbols either accompany the verbal description of the service or stand alone to act as a beacon. In either case they strengthen communication. The set of fifty pictograms developed by the AIGA, a leading professional design association, for the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) has become the standard symbol family for wayfinding purposes since its completion in 1981. Now nearly universal in public facilities here and abroad, they address everything from restrooms and escalators for ferry terminals. The symbols mostly define places, like a stairwell or pharmacy, but also services, such as currency exchanges or a checked-baggage area. The set also includes some prohibitions like No Smoking. Since the debut of the AIGAâ „DOT symbols, several additional symbol sets have been created for areas of public assembly where good wayfinding is desirable. In 1991 the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) created 108 new recreation symbols to complement the transportation symbols, and they are now in use at parks, greenways, and forest preserves.
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Hospitals are notoriously complex environments; symbols can simplify communication with anxious visitors. JRC Design worked with Hablamos Juntos, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, leading a national team of designers to develop a health-care symbol set later tested for use on wayfinding signage by SEGD. The set was released in 2005. These symbols depict the various medical disciplines found in hospitals. The original intent of this project was to provide better access to health-care facilities for non-English speakers in the United States, but the net result may be better accessibility for all. Additionally, the SEGD created four symbols to help indicate the location of accessible facilities, as mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Information designers have to keep an intercultural audience in mind when designing wayfinding systems. They must use symbols and pictograms to communicate large amounts of information in a single visual representation. In settings such as airports, hospitals, buildings and streets, symbols have to speak to different language users and deliver a clear message. Symbols represent words or images by association while pictograms are images that represent an object. Common symbols and pictograms include arrows, people, transportation and route markers. The challenge lies in creating symbols and pictograms to satisfy an intercultural communication need. A good wayfinding system is built on clarity, legibility and consistency that can help people orient themselves in an unfamiliar environment. People have to be able to successfully navigate within a physical space using posted symbols and pictograms on signs. Consider a family that just moved to Calgary. They have to be able to find customs, baggage claim, and transportation after they have arrived. The symbols they see have to convey the same meaning across various languages and cultures. Pictograms have to be legible and use appropriate colours, size and contrast to give a snapshot of information quickly. When driving, people only have a moment to glance at signs. If people see a sign that has a purple symbol on a black background, they will not be able to distinguish between the colours. The best high-contrast colour combinations are: white/ black, yellow/black, and white/green. In addition to being legible, pictograms need a consistent look and feel to make them look like they belong in the same family.
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The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation, (DOT) designed a system of 50 symbols. The symbols were meant to be used in large international locations such as airports and transportation hubs to guide passengers and pedestrians. Before the project, other systems such as Otto Neurath’s International System of TYpographic Picture Education (ISOTYPE) were designed to visually communicate societal, economic and political information through pictograms. AIGA and DOT built upon Neurath’s pictograms and succeeded in designing symbols that have become the standard in visual communication. The most common wayfinding symbol is the arrow. It creates movement and identifies direction. Most importantly, it transforms information into order by controlling our behaviour. For example, if we see an arrow pointing right, we go right. We place great importance on this little symbol. Imagine the frustration we would feel if we were misled by an arrow pointing in the wrong direction. It can make us late to meetings, cause missed flights or make us take the wrong turn-off on the freeway.
Symbols and pictograms play a significant role in how we make our way around unfamiliar spaces. Arrows direct our movement while pictograms show us where we are going by representing objects and locations. Remember the family at the beginning of the article? By seeing pictograms of an arrow, a suitcase, a car, and a uniformed officer, they would know which direction to go. They would be able to find their way because information designers used visual communication tools to speak their language. Icons and symbols are universally recognizable and good design ensures such images are located within clear lines of sight. Directional demarcations help residents navigate transit infrastructure, which is often underground, multitiered and confusing, particularly for out-of-town travelers. But icons are not just about wayfinding; they also ensure that a people can understand and identify transit regardless of literacy or language, help travelers and commuters switch between transit modes and routes, and enforce or legitimize rules of the road. Two key visual methods-representational graphics and icons-serve as visual cues that reinforce direction, location, modes and uses of transit. A variety of ways to access information are necessary to provide useful service. This could include audible cues, as well as visuals like maps, wayfinding symbols and even branding so people can identify different service providers.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
The symbols and pictograms that we rely on for wayfinding have to be tested for user recognition and comprehension. Through usability studies, people are surveyed to check the effectiveness of symbols and pictograms. Designers have to know what kind of approach to take based on usability findings. Sometimes, a simple depiction of a tooth is all that is needed to signify ‘dentist’ while, at other times, using a hospital bed and nurse in a pictogram might also be needed to add a storytelling element.
User testing will also indicate if symbols and pictograms are unclear and ambiguous. Using cropped images of people can confuse users who need to see the entire image. The use of metaphor in pictograms is also challenging because the meaning may not translate across the world’s many different cultures that exist.
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SYMBOLS BECOMES A COMMON LANGUAGE BETWEEN ARTIST AND SPECTATOR.
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
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MARK/ed TYPE CONFERENCE
L O G I STI CS 29 July 2014 - 31 July 2014 Berlin, Germany @ Deutsche Industrie Normandie (DIN HQ)
AB O UT The MARK/ed typography conference focuses on the use of typography, color, and symbols in wayfinding design. In the last hundred years, graphic designers have become an important asset in creating easily navigated public spaces. The MARK/ed type conference brings together graphic designers, architects, and civil engineers to learn, explore, and discuss typography and its importance and use in wayfinding around the world.
K E YNOTE SPEAKERS David Gibson (Wayfinding Designer, Graphic Designer) Erik Spiekermann (Graphic Designer, Typographer)
SPE CI AL GUESTS
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Albert-Jan Pool (Graphic Designer, Typographer) Massimo Vignelli (Graphic Designer) Nazar Alsayyad (Architect, Professor at UC Berkeley) Ralf Herrmann (Graphic Designer, Typographer) Kazuyo Sejima (Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate) Ryue Nishizawa (Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate)
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SCHED U L E O F E V ENTS
2 9 JULY 2014 9:00am – 4:30pm PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS
6:00pm – 10:00pm KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: David Gibson
3 0 JULY 2014 8:30am OPENING REMARKS TYPOGRAPHY IN SIGNS: Erik Spiekerman WAYFINDING IN PRINT: Massimo Vignelli
10:30am IMPORTANCE OF ARCHITECTURE: Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa
LUNCH
2:30pm DESIGNING TYPE FOR WAYFINDING: Ralf Herrmann FROM ENGINEERING TO DESIGN: Albert-Jan Pool
5:30pm DESIGNING ENVIRONMENTS: Nazar Alsayyad
3 1 JULY 2014 9:00am – 4:30pm HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS
6:00pm IMPORTANCE OF WAYFINDING: David Gibson CLOSING REMARKS
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
12:00pm
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COLOPHON
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PHOTOGRAPHY Leandra Santos AIGA⁄DOT PICTOGRAMS United States Department of Transportation in collaboration with Roger Cook and Don Shanosky
PAPER Epson Presentation Paper Matte DESIGN & ART DIRECTION Leandra Santos
ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY
INFORMATION & SOURCES David Gibson Ralf Herrmann Joshua Yaffa Paul Nini
FONTS USED Franklin Gothic by Morris Fuller Benton Miso by Mårten Nettelbladt
MARKEDTYPE.COM
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ENGINEERING TYPOGRAPHY