Wayfinding Systems - Idea 3/ Road Signs

IDEA 3

SIGNS-
Idea books can take you new places, the idea is create signs for each area to reflect how books and reading can transport the audience to a new world or place. Signs that are recognizable and obvious, directly seen as directions because of visually literacy but also portray the idea that shop wants to be seen as strongly British by using retro British road signs.

this idea is based around the concept that the shop is so heavy typographical based that to make a sign/direction clear it need to be in a formate the audience understands and looks for.The signs taken the form of existing traffic or road signs will allow the audience to see them directly and focus on them when they are lost as they will be associated with this style as a direction in everyday life. Road signs will be bold and simple in a way that has already been scientifically proven to direct and stand out therefore would fit the aim of the brief well as the colour schemes, styles and design have been worked on by many different people to perfect this. The signs will be slightly edited to make they fit the style of the shop more, differentiate the style for the different main genres.

The signs will be placed at all the main entrances and path ways of the shop, the road fork style of design will then give a clearly direction to the audience so its clear which direction to take.

existing signs for guidance at cross roads - 

street sign research -

design sketches -

non fiction sign -

Kept realistic to reflect the type of books in this section, serious and informative but this style of sign was picked as it most creative yet direct also the white red and black will stand out against the colourful textual background because of the simpleness of the design. This work with the current wayfinding colour scheme as its the same colours, helping all the wayfinding systems link together. As the company is typically British and seen as a strong British brand using a British style of sign as the main signs will reinforce this ideology.

fiction sign -

Same sign used for all the main sections (children's, fiction, non fiction) to help keep a constant style but each of the sign has a different typeface for the title of the area. This is for the fiction which is a made up, not realistic, more creative style of books therefore this is a font has to reflect this. Finding a font to represent all the different sub-genres of this wide genre was difficult but this was picked as its very creative therefore reflects the idea of unrealistic in a general way. This was selected because overall its still very neutral, slightly different and crazy due to the unnatural forms and unique letter style which does differ between each letter but still not overly powering for one of the many different fictional genres. The only parts changed are the arrows and the title, this is to keep a common style between the signs and the make them clearly recognizable they couldn't be edited too much and lose their defining features.

childrens sign -

scrabble letter made bigger

Here scrabble letter are use to reflect the children's section of the shop, this is as scrabble is game therefore using this style will make the section more fun and interactive, scrabble will be recognised by children and adults as young/childish therefore will directly show the audience of the area. The letters are added is a more messy, mismatched less formal why also to make the area seem more fun and interactive, the area needs to be seen as less serious than the others and this does this. the arrows are hand drawn childlike arrows that will again make it obvious this area is for children as it looks like its been drawn by them.  

other directions - 

To create the directions to the other parts of the shop, the needed areas this idea was to a use a contrast colour style of sign but one that will still work with the other design. Therefore i uses this smaller style which is uses more for public footpaths, the letters are smaller as people will usually be on foot so can get closer and will be walking so they have more time to read the directions. This style fits with the other designs because it uses the same main fonts but with the contrasting colour scheme use is the opposite way to make them stand out.