Oppo­sites Attract: Sci­ence + Art = Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design

Sci­ence and Art come togeth­er in Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design for bold looks that are cap­ti­vat­ing and functional.

You walk by them every sin­gle day. Envi­ron­men­tal graph­ics are every­where. They wel­come you to a new build­ing. They direct you to the right hall­way to find your doctor’s office. They tell you which restroom is the men’s or women’s. They show you where to park and how to find the ele­va­tor. Envi­ron­men­tal graph­ic design (EGD) is part of the every­day fab­ric of our lives, and many of us nev­er notice it — and that’s no accident.

That’s because there is a dif­fer­ence between tra­di­tion­al sig­nage and envi­ron­men­tal graph­ics. EGD and wayfind­ing is the sci­ence and art that moves peo­ple to a desired des­ti­na­tion. Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ics also cre­ate and build an expe­ri­ence. Incor­po­rat­ing a company’s brand and graph­ics into the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment of a facil­i­ty cre­ates a larg­er expe­ri­ence by infus­ing the space with per­son­al­i­ty. EGD devel­ops a nar­ra­tive and an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to the space.

THE SCI­ENCE OF EGD

Effec­tive EGD cre­ates a seam­less expe­ri­ence for peo­ple as they nav­i­gate a new or com­plex build­ing or cam­pus. Direc­tion­al sig­nage is part of a holis­tic plan that takes into account traf­fic pat­terns and where peo­ple make deci­sions about where to go next. Lat­i­tude experts devel­oped Sign­Plan, a com­pre­hen­sive, phased process that brings clar­i­ty and pur­pose to the com­plex task of devel­op­ing, spec­i­fy­ing and imple­ment­ing an archi­tec­tur­al sig­nage program. 

Alan Par­sons, Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design­er, at Lat­i­tude Sig­nage is a pro at cre­at­ing com­plex wayfind­ing sig­nage plans. ​“Often I’ll start a plan by look­ing through the floor plans. If the envi­ron­ment is com­plex, then I like to go on site with the marked-up plans to make revi­sions. I pre­fer to meet with the client on site for com­pli­cat­ed areas of the envi­ron­ment. I’ll ask them how they would want traf­fic flow to occur and will also guide them with my expe­ri­ence and exper­tise com­par­ing the spe­cif­ic envi­ron­ment with oth­ers I’ve sign planned.”

Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design not only leads you to your des­ti­na­tion, but it can also solve brand­ing issues. For exam­ple, Lat­i­tude com­plet­ed a full archi­tec­tur­al sign pack­age for Fre­mont Health in Fre­mont, NE. New exte­ri­or sig­nage uni­fied the hos­pi­tal and clin­ics under one brand. On the inte­ri­or, how­ev­er, there were sev­er­al chal­lenges. Lat­i­tude need­ed to cre­ate dis­tinct sig­nage for dif­fer­ent busi­ness units that was also con­sis­tent with the over­ar­ch­ing brand. Latitude’s EGD team devel­oped a sig­nage solu­tion that uti­lized a basic sign size, mate­r­i­al, and type­face for con­sis­ten­cy. The col­ors, images, and graph­ics could be per­son­al­ized by depart­ment. This solu­tion gave Fre­mont Health strong brand­ing through­out the hos­pi­tal with the flex­i­bil­i­ty they need­ed for spe­cial departments.

THE ART OF EGD

While ana­lyt­ics are a big part of plan­ning and exe­cut­ing an EGD project, the sci­ence must also work hand-in-hand with cre­ativ­i­ty. Dig­i­tal­ly print­ed wall graph­ics and exte­ri­or sign instal­la­tions blur the line between pub­lic art and infor­ma­tion­al signs. For exam­ple, donor walls often share an enor­mous amount of infor­ma­tion about the mis­sion of an orga­ni­za­tion, express grat­i­tude to its donors, and invite new donors. Often it’s also where design­ers get to spread their cre­ative wings. 

Andrej Stein­bergs, Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design­er, ​“With the new YMCA build­ing in Coun­cil Bluffs, Iowa. I got to design the inte­ri­or signs and the donor wall. The client gave me a lot of free­dom in com­ing up with a unique solu­tion for their donor wall needs. I car­ried the look of the donor wall through­out the space and repeat­ed some of the design ele­ments on room iden­ti­fiers and ADA sig­nage.”

The key for Lat­i­tude design­ers is know­ing when to let the signs make an impact and when to let EGD signs recede into the envi­ron­ment. Par­sons says, ​“If done right, envi­ron­men­tal graph­ics should leave peo­ple remem­ber­ing the place and space they just expe­ri­enced. They should­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly remem­ber just the graph­ics them­selves but the graph­ics should aid the envi­ron­ment they are in so a per­son gets a more well-round­ed expe­ri­ence.”

ENVI­RON­MEN­TAL GRAPH­IC DESIGN AT Latitude

From high-ener­gy brand­ed sig­nage to painstak­ing­ly-detailed wayfind­ing plans, Lat­i­tude Sig­nage experts thrive on cre­ative prob­lem solv­ing with Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ics. If you’re look­ing for a way to ele­vate the expe­ri­ence peo­ple have at your facil­i­ty, con­tact the pro­fes­sion­als at Lat­i­tude to learn more about the EGD Team.

“Our first step is to meet with the client and find out what they need,” says Kristin Adkins, Design­Build Spe­cial­ist. ​“We talk about where the prob­lem areas are. How do we get peo­ple to their des­ti­na­tion? Are they self-direct­ed or escort­ed? Where are they mak­ing deci­sions?”

After the ini­tial meet­ing, the Lat­i­tude team takes the client’s input and ana­lyzes maps and floor plans to gen­er­ate a com­pre­hen­sive sign plan. They include spec­i­fi­ca­tions for ADA guide­lines and build­ing codes so that the client nev­er has to wor­ry about com­pli­ance. Then they devel­op cre­ative con­cepts for the client’s review. Once every­thing is approved, the final designs are sent to pro­duc­tion and then sched­uled for installation. 

Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design is hard­work­ing and eye catch­ing. Detailed and delight­ful. Metic­u­lous and mar­velous. It is tru­ly a blend of sci­ence and art.