Roads, Journeys & Wayfinding
Roads of Lucerne
About the book This is a documentation of the signages of Lucerne during my exchange semester in 2013. This handbook is an attempt to co-relate theory with practicality and judge if they go hand in hand.
By: Varenya Raj Erasmus exhange student Hochshule Luzern Autumn semester (2013-14) National Institute of Design Ahmedabad India.
Contents About the city
My observations
Meaning of a Sign
Classifications
Wayshowing
Wayfinding
Practical theory
Why do they not work?
Sign contents
Conclusion
About the city
chapter #01 || 07
Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, where predominantly German is spoken and is the most populous city in central Switzerland. Being located on the shore of Lake Lucerne and in reach of spectacular view of Mount Pilatus and Rigi, it attracts a lot of tourists from round the globe. I got an ideal time to observe, analyse and admire the town during the exchange semester. Being a Graphic design student, noticing the visual communication sensitivity was quite inevitable. I was quite impressed with the road signage system and what could have been a better way to see the town than documenting the signages and explore the place.
My observation
chapter #02 || 09
My opinion is very subjective and all my observation came due the contrasts which I could make from the signages here and in India and how effective or ineffective they are in their respective places.
Lucerne which is 436m above the sea level has wet climatic conditions all round the year. This makes the light from the sun appear whitish when they pass through the clouds. This decreases the process of colour interaction taking place everywhere and the light reecting from every element appears richer. Due to the same phenomenon, the signages appear more effective and clearer.
“ Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used “to tell” at all.” – Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics
Meaning of a Sign Semiotic deals with broad qualities, nature and functions of sign. Sign is an abstract form which has attached meanings. In semiotic jargon, this is the relation between signifier and signified.
chapter #03 || 11
A sign with a natural relation between signifier and signified, between what it shows and what it means, is a motivated sign. A sign with a pair of spectacles outside an optician’s shop is a motivated sign. It is immediately understandable. A non-figurative trademark outside a bank is not a motivated sign; it is arbitrary. There is no natural relation between the signifier and the signified. An arbitrary sign is only understandable because of a convention, an agreement about its meaning.
Classifications Signs are classified into icons, indices and symbols. Icons and indices are motivated signs while symbols are arbitrary signs.
Icon: it is a sign related to its object by similarity. The signifier and the signified—what is shown, what is meant— share some quality or attributes. Icon are further divided into images, diagrams, metaphors.
Images are simply pictures of the objects. Diagrams are visual abstractions that have a structural similarity to their objects. Metaphors are signs which share one or more conceptual qualities with their objects.
Index: it relates to its object by some kind of obvious physical relation. It is divided into designations and reagents.
Designations point to their object. All spatial signs are designations by definition. They point to—and derive part of their meaning from—their location. Reagents are related to their objects by casual relationship. The object is the cause. The sign is the effect. The pastry smell from the basketry store is acting as a reagent. The bakery is the cause. The smell is the effect.
Symbol: the receiver’s culture shapes the meaning.
chapter #04 || 13
Wayshowing Good wayshowing starts with the planning of the environment for town, parts of the town and large buildings. Wayfinding friendly environments include elements of repetition as well as variation. The repetitive elements facilitate global understanding while variety facilitates local wayfinding. Environmental signages inform reader about something related to their location. Depending on the function, they are classified into four categories: Identification signs reveal the identity of the place.
Directional signs gives information about the place with direction indicated.
Descriptive signs contain detailed spatial information and explains something about that situation.
Regulatory signs –they facilitate the behaviour of their reader in a safe and pre cautious manner.
chapter #05 || 15
Wrong direction
Back to start point
Right direction
Most confussing zone
#5
differentiation
labelling
relative positioning
global positioning
Wayfinding Wayfinding is a spatial problem solving process. The problem is finding a way from a place to one or more destinations and perhaps back to the original place. The problem solving process implies recognising a problem and it includes activities directly involved in finding a way. Wayfinding can also be described in terms of a means-end analysis where the way finder relates to the world through two types of channels—sensory channel and motor channel. The sensory channels take in the information from the environment and the motor channel acts upon the environment.
Positions–Positions can be recognised in four ways. First, positions can have an appearance that make them recognisable by difference, natural or designed. Second, positions can be relative, recognisable due to their surroundings. Third, positions can be labelled with identification signs. Fourth, positions can be recognised by global positioning. The shocking pink house in a row of white house is identified by distinction. The house at the corner of the street is identified by its relative position. The house at Rajiv colony, road number #5 is identified by its label. The North Pole is identified by its global position irrespective of where you are.
chapter #06 || 17
“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” – Albert Einstein.
Practical theory We often see practice and theory presented as opposites: acting versus thinking. Theory, however, may be more or less academic, more or less aloof from the world. The theory presents relevance to the practical problems. Practitioners in the sign trade presumably do not spend their day speculating about a theory of signs. Making signage that works is a practical occupation in which experience, often educated by learning from mistakes, teaches what is not immediately clear to the beginner. But useful theories do exist for signage. Although their originators did not think speciďŹ cally about signage, some communication and sign theories apply perfectly well to the business of signage. These theories expand our understanding of practical phenomena and offer guidelines for good signage practice.
chapter #07 || 19
Why do they not work? Signages do not work sometime because they do not follow the theoretical principles. Signages do not work because they do not function on the technical level. This happens when they are not visible, let alone legible from the proper functions. Presumptive users cannot spot them and read them. Perhaps they are too small or located too far away or located in an otherwise wrong position. Perhaps they were covered by plants or other signages. Perhaps they are not tidy. Sometimes they might not be seen because of little contrast from the background. Shadow, glossiness, etc can also attribute to non visibility of signages. Signages might be perfectly visible but still do not function as intended because they are not understandable. Signages do not work on the semantic level. The reader might not know the language used in the signage or the pictogram is unclear or the text is not comprehensible or combination of any case.
chapter #08 || 21
Sign contents Typography –Letter, words, sentences should easily be legible. Legibility is more important than fashion. Legibility involves our ability to read a sign. In the signage design, space economy may be an important factor. Narrow typeface affects the counter. Counter sizes affect the legibility from the acute angle. Short ascender length and descender length also reduces legibility. Ordinary letterforms are generally better than italic style and bold weight. Text written should not be in all caps because the ascenders and descenders make the larger difference making the signage legible faster and easier. Pictograms –they are pictorial signs that depict what they signify. As non verbal signs, they are designed to help people with different language backgrounds as well as people with certain type of reading disability. The function of the pictogram requires convention and motivation. ďŹ rstly, they should be precise like an icon or image. Secondly, they should be standardised and uniformed.
chapter #09 || 23
On the left page is the typeface Fruitger 67 Bold Condensed (weight) used in road signs of Swizterland. At the bottom are few pictograms from few road signages. The pictograms in the top row have red circle around them while the bottom ones have triangles with round corners. Red colour as we can guess signifies danger.
road #1
road #2 road #3
chapter #09 || 25
Arrows –the arrow is meant and understood to indicate the direction shown by its orientation. Guidelines –they are in principle bidirectional. Usually used in hospitals and parking lots. Maps –maps are two dimensional pictorial representation of a three dimensional world. They depict the world in a reduced scale, excluding everything but selected features. Scale designates the size ratio between the map and the real world. Colours –they are instrumental element to most kinds of visual language. firstly, color contrast between signboard and its background gives the sign its target value. Secondly, colour contrast between signboard and the sign content makes the content legible. Thirdly, color contrast between different signs may facilitate visual differentiation between different types of messages. Fourthly, color contrast between different content elements within a sign may facilitate differentiating between different types of messages.
On NCS Natural Colour System is a colour description system based on six elementary colours: four chromatic and two non-chromatic colours. Chromatic colours are the first four while the last two are non-chromatic.
Conclusion
chapter #10 || 27
My curiosity to document the signages without checking with the theory would have been futile. After reading the theory, my understanding of signs got clearer and changed my perception with which I look at them now. Now I feel, I posses the eye to look, analyse and conclude why a particular sign is in the way it is. Documenting the signages via photography or just reading the text of the theory would not have been sufďŹ cient for a good understanding. Practicality and theory are like two arms of the same beam balance which need to be equated at each instant to communicate the message in the best suitable manner to the particular audience..