Interactive Information Design

Signage For Some Environment

I have designed signage for a university environment, which aim to help students and visitors to find specific buildings or landmarks.

My concept rests on the problem that maps at universities are often frustrating and confusing. My solution is to make finding the building you (yes you) are looking for easier by having a more intuitive installation, or as I like to call it when I have my academia-cap on: a point of view map. A point of view map works by having visual representations of actual buildings colourfully displayed on a curved, transparent glass display roughly two metres high and nine metres long. Stripes matching the colour of each building descend down the surface of the installation and across the ground infront. When a passer-by walks onto the stripe of colour, the actual building is approximately in the direction you are viewing the representation of the building on the display. The name of the building and how long it should take to walk there is written accordingly on the display.

This makes the buildings easier to find because you know their actual direction without forcing you to work out which way is north or where am I on this damn map!; how long it should take you to get to the building; and also shows you what that building will look like.

I think this installation would be aesthetically pleasing and would be a more helpful and interesting introduction to the university environment. Some draw backs are that these displays would be massive and may get in the way, don't show in detail how to get somewhere (though this could be overcome by having other signs colour coded to correspond with the POV Map), and it might be difficult for people at first to realize what the hell they actually are.

Fin.

Update: I used Google SketchUp to make the diagram. It is free, easy to use and pretty powerful as well.

Tags: Augmented, Interation, Map, Navigation, Reality, Signage, University