STUDIO BRIEF 1 - WAYFINDING RATIONALE

Wayfinding Rationale 

Leeds Light Night didn’t have signage in 2016, it had a map which wasn’t very useful for the public who weren’t from Leeds as they aren’t familiar of the area and having looked at the existing map it isn’t that accurate. I also attended some of the shows and it wasn’t clear which zone you were in when you in it.  I will make mine clearer by having two different sections of my wayfinding system. 

My idea is to make Leeds Light Night more interactive and playful. I want to create a system with the first section of arrows which tell you roughly how far to walk to a specific zone on my map. The second section of arrows will be when you are in the zone, it tells you how far to walk to each different area in that zone. However, to make it more interactive the arrows will be reflective tape meaning you need a torch to find your way around. The system will be very clear and simple to make sure that it is easy to navigate around and the arrows will be at a large enough scale that you can see them on the floor from 30 meters away.

The arrows are colour coded for the 10 different zones The colour swatch is the 10 different zone colours. When you are in one zone the arrows stay the colour of the zone so it is clear which zone you are in. The wayfinding system could be used widely by a range of people from families with children, students and adults who all want to have a bit of fun while viewing the Leeds Light Night.  There is a map to alongside the system with the key for what shows are in the zones on the back of the map.

Whilst creating this sign system I will strive to create a system which is including an aspect of fun and most of all to be subjective, opposite of Wim Crouwel's approach to design which is very neutral and he only designs for a client’s purpose. However, when designing the system there will be both subjective and objective qualities to it. A quote from Experimental Jeyset states that ‘most sign systems have the appearance of an objective, functional, almost scientific construction. However, under the surface one can find many subjective motives.’.