Signage & wayfinding

Wayfinding: letting people arrive without having to ask

Wayfinding is the whole set of means by which someone finds their way through a building or across a site: signs, pictograms, colours, numbering, floor plans and the logic behind them. It works well when nobody notices it. It is only noticed when it fails, and then it costs time, patience and sometimes safety.

We design and deliver wayfinding and signage for hospitals, schools, business parks, office buildings, sports complexes, municipalities and industrial sites. That goes further than producing signs: we first look at routes and decision points, and only then at which sign goes where.

The plan comes before the sign

Most signage problems do not arise because the signs are badly made, but because they have been added one by one over the years without a coherent plan. The result is a corridor with eight signs where two would do, in four typefaces, and still nobody finds the right door.

Our approach starts with a route analysis. Where do people enter, what are the destinations, and at which points must they choose? At each decision point there should be exactly one clear instruction, and between two decision points a confirmation that they are still on the right track. Anything beyond that is noise. We often end up with fewer signs than were there before, and a result that works noticeably better.

The levels of a good plan

• Orientation: where am I, what is this building or site.
• Direction: which way to go, at every junction of routes.
• Identification: this is the door, the hall, the room, the department you were looking for.
• Regulation and safety: what is not allowed here, and where is the emergency exit.

Legibility: the details that count

A sign is only useful when it is read at the distance at which it needs to be read.

• Letter height follows from reading distance. A rule of thumb that works well in practice: roughly one centimetre of letter height per three metres of distance, and more when people are moving.
• Contrast between text and background matters more than the choice of colour. Dark on light generally reads more comfortably than the reverse.
• One sans-serif typeface throughout the building, in upper and lower case. A word set entirely in capitals reads noticeably more slowly.
• Limit the number of destinations per sign. Beyond five or six lines the reader gives up.
• Choose consistent wording. Someone who reads "Radiology" on the first sign should not find "Imaging" at the door.
• Avoid reflective materials where light falls strongly.

Accessible to everyone

Signage that only works for those who see well and read fluently does half its job.

• Pictograms support those who do not speak the language or read with difficulty. Use common, recognisable symbols rather than in-house creations.
• Braille and tactile characters on door signs at a consistent height help blind visitors, provided they are always in the same place.
• Sufficient contrast and a matt finish help people with low vision.
• Calm, predictable signage without an excess of stimuli helps visitors with a cognitive impairment or autism. For care and education settings this is an explicit point of attention in our design.
• Multilingual signage where the user group requires it, with a fixed order of languages.

Safety signage and legislation

Safety signage is not a design freedom but an obligation. Escape route marking, fire-fighting equipment, and prohibition, mandatory and warning signs are standardised in shape, colour and pictogram. We work with standardised pictograms and supply, where applicable, photoluminescent material so that the indication stays visible during a power failure.

In an audit or inspection, these are the points that go wrong: missing or outdated pictograms, evacuation plans that no longer match the layout, and signage obscured by furniture or storage. We are happy to walk through this with you and supply a schedule of what needs to be changed.

Materials by environment

• Indoors: dibond, acrylic, aluminium composite, anodised aluminium and system profiles with interchangeable text panels. The latter is sensible where names or functions change regularly.
• Outdoors: powder-coated or anodised aluminium, with UV-resistant film or digital print. Choose a quality that matches the intended service life, because cheap film fades visibly within a few years.
• Industry: materials resistant to cleaning, chemicals, heat or moisture, and floor marking that withstands forklift traffic.
• Care and food: smooth, cleanable surfaces without seams where dirt can lodge.

Growing with the building

Organisations change: departments move, teams are renamed, a wing is added. We therefore build with interchangeable inserts wherever possible and supply a signage plan listing the materials, colours, typefaces and supplier details used. Your facilities team can then order an additional sign that matches the rest exactly, even years later and even if you work with another partner.

What determines the price?

Signage has no fixed price per sign. Cost follows from:

• The number of signs and the number of different formats. Repeating the same format strongly reduces the unit cost.
• The choice of material and expected service life.
• Interchangeable systems versus fixed signs.
• Whether a design and route-analysis phase is needed, or the plan already exists.
• Installation: height, façade type, whether drilling is permitted, work during or outside opening hours.
• Special requirements such as braille, photoluminescent material or a vandal-resistant version.

Send us your floor plan and a list of destinations, and you will receive a proposal with a sign schedule and a quotation in which every item is shown separately.

Put your situation to us

Send us the floor plan, or take a short walk with your phone and send the photographs. We will point out where visitors get stuck and propose a plan you can carry out step by step.