Arrows and further wayfinding research.

I began to look at wayfinding in a more obvious sense, such as using arrows and found these different simple styles of direction pointing arrows, I feel I want to produce an arrow to go alongside my type, I want it to be simple, clear and informative, using arrows to point in the direction is the simplest form of wayfinding and it is usually also the most effective and recognised in the world.

I visited the National Media Museum in Bradford, to see what the style of way finding was employed within, to broaden my ideas of what I could produce. What I found was this large arrow style design which was placed both on the wall and also as stand up signs, which could be moved around, in the shape of arrow heads, pointing in the direction with the type in the actual arrow itself, these were clear and visually pleasing. I did find some inconsistency within this style though such as the size of the text, within the arrows the blocks of text had 2 or 3 different sizes of text, yet the information was all informative of the same subject so could be displayed as the same size, the type choices over complicated the sleek design. The colours also ranged from blue to yellow to orange, at first I thought this was a design choice to point into different floors with each floor having a colour scheme but soon realised that some colours were used twice for similar things yet then not used for other parts of the building which fell within the same category. I feel the colours could have been better thought out, with one colour representing one thing for example, the cafe, shop, toilets, exits, general building information in one colour and then perhaps a special exhibit could employ a different colour, instead of mix and matching the colours for different things all the time. Though these draw backs the design has, the style used at the Media Museum is very clear and sleek.

I found this arrow style shortly after I had visited the Media museum and thought they had a similar look to the arrows used at the museum, the shape means that they can go clearly next to one and other and fit together well, they are also very clear and representable as arrows pointing in directions, even when altered to be facing left, right, up, down and also at various angles.

For my way finding of the Leeds City Gallery, I wanted to create directions for all parts of the building including, exits, lifts and toilets, this means I will need a set of pictograms to go along with these signs, I don't want to over complicate this, yet I want to create a set of pictograms myself to go along with my design, I looked at the regular styles of pictograms on signage such as lifts and toilets to get a sense of the clear simple designs used.

The toilet signs, being one of the most recognisable in the world, which features a pictogram of a man, woman and disabled person and usually no type is simple, and rarely changes, it always has a clear message of what is being meant and is easily read and understood. The pictographic symbol for the lift is a bit more difficult and changes often, yet usually is a box with a man inside and arrows pointing up and down, this would need to be accompanied with text to be fully understood by every one.

Whilst looking through different way finding styles and directional signs, I found this design created for the 2012 London Olympic games, these signs would be put up around the olympic stadiums and the olympic garden with directions on them, I think the shapes used are very interesting in style and go well with the type face and logo which was designed especially for these games. I could employ a list style direction board within my project, which would read something like, Level one, cafe, toilet, Etc.