Blog - Page 33 of 33 - ASI Signage

Comprehensive Wayfinding Solution for an Upscale, Urban Safari

23 Dec 2010

Kalahari Resort is an African-themed waterpark resort in Sandusky, OH, with a $19 million conference and meetings facility called The Nia Center. Kalahari’s Nia Center is the only facility in the region to provide a complete conference experience that includes 95,000 sq. ft. of versatile function space including 596 guest rooms, eight dining options, a collection of unique retail shops, Spa Kalahari and a fully-equipped fitness center. The conference area features 25 meeting rooms, including a 17,200 sq. ft. grand ballroom, two 3,500 sq. ft. junior ballrooms, four unique African hut-inspired meeting rooms and an executive conference center. The state-of-the-art facility offers a dynamic menu of amenities to enhance the guest experience, including MeetingMatrix™, an online planning tool that enables meeting planners to plan, diagram and model their meeting plans from a virtual location.

The Nia Center required a comprehensive signage solution that would integrate seamlessly into its African-themed environment, distinguish The Nia Center brand, and reflect the center’s overall commitment to technology and business productivity. In addition to supporting the technology needs of the center, the desired solution would provide a comprehensive wayfinding program to provide directional assistance to guests. The overall implementation required quick and thorough process of planning and implementation to coincide with the grand opening of the facility.

ASI was enlisted to provide a comprehensive wayfinding solution that included interior static directional and ADA-Ready™ signs and exterior illuminated dimensional letters. Services included a complete, design, fabrication, and installation. The client’s goal was to have a total signage solution that complements the African theme through color and stylized graphic elements. ASI chose to use its modular, curved-face sign system, Pacific Interior™ to complement architectural features and meet the wayfinding needs of the center.

The interior signs include large facility maps, directionals, ADA-Ready™ room and restroom signs, projecting signs and dimensional letters. The exterior signs include two halo-lit logos that provide a powerful yet refined large-scale identification at night.

By utilizing ASI for its architectural signage needs, The Nia Center received a complete signage program that complements the look and feel of the facility and provide patrons a clear, updateable, and seamless information system.

For more information on this project, including images and a downloadable PDF case study, click here.

Posted by Liz Kelly

Exterior Digital Signage: Where to Place It, How to Protect It

23 Dec 2010

Check out this article from EnzineMark.com named “The Five Steps to Ensuring Outdoor Digital Signage is Protected,” about exterior digital signage. The article talks about how to place it and protect it, and it reminded us about an earlier posting about the exterior digital signage that ringed the playing field at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Posted by Liz Kelly

How to Choose Fonts for Interior Signage: Part 2

23 Dec 2010

In case you missed it, read Part 1 of the “how to choose fonts” series. Click Here.

To design for interior signage we must first look at a few sign types (this is not a comprehensive list) that will be used. Each one will require a slightly different approach when choosing a font style.

•   Wall Mounted ADA Compliant Signage
•   Main Identity/Logo
•   Wall Mounted Directionals
•   Overhead Directionals

Wall Mounted ADA Compliant Signage:
Signage for compliance with Title III of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines have been recently updated.

Title III states:
703.2.3 Style. Characters shall be sans serif. Characters shall not be italic, oblique script, highly decorative, or of other unusual forms.

Serif fonts are the fonts that have little tails as show below:

A sans-serif font does not have tails. This term comes from the French meaning “without serifs”:

Some additional examples of sans serif types are Helvetica, Frutiger, Optima and Futura.

Main Identity/Logo:
Some companies have a formal reception area, which requires special signage to reinforce their branding. This can be a logo design mounted behind a desk or characters on a large wall that is viewed upon entry. Visibility and personal preference are the general rules of thumb here. If it is a very large open space you may want your cap heights to be 4″ or more. I have seen logo applications that are between 1 to 2 feet in height and there are no limitations on font styles.

Wall Mounted Directionals:
There are not codes governing wall mounted directional font style or cap heights but here are a few good rules to follow. Don’t make your cap heights less then 2″. Make sure you give your directions in batches of 3 with a space in between if you have to direct people to more then three places. The brain thinks in groups of three. Group your right, left, up and down arrows together in your messaging.

Overhead Directionals:
Instead of having restrictions on styles of fonts that can be used for overhead directionals there are more specific regulations on character height, stroke thickness, character spacing, line spacing, etc. Therefore, you could us a Serif font as long as the “stroke thickness of the uppercase letter “I” is 10% minimum and 30 percent maximum of the height of the character.” Let me show you examples of a couple fonts:

Posted by Liz Kelly

Great Wayfinding Blog Post About Using Visual Clues To Guide People

23 Dec 2010

This is a link to a great wayfinding blog post from “Design and the Human Factor” titled “Wayfinding is more than signage – using other visual clues.” If you are architect or design professional working in the signage industry and are challenged with creating wayfinding solutions for interior and exterior signage, we recommend spending 3 minutes looking over the images and the wayfinding information in this post.

Here is the opening paragraph from the post. Enjoy!

“Wayfinding around complex buildings and spaces is a difficult task. The main tactic is usually static signage. However this has problems in the volume of information that can be presented and more importantly absorbed and understood by the user. To deal with this we are seeing more interesting ways to convey wayfinding information – here are some examples that we’ve come across recently.”

Click here to view the blog post.

Posted by Liz Kelly

Great Wayfinding and Architectural Signage at Work in a Hospital

23 Dec 2010

In previous posts, we talked about hospital wayfinding as being an extension of its advocacy for health and healing. Patients, visitors and even staff who can easily navigate around the sprawl of a typical metropolitan hospital campus avoid the stress and confusion of poor (or lack of) signage at the key decision points throughout the facility. Even more important, critical healthcare decisions are often made against the clock, such as when an ambulance rolls onto the campus and must locate the emergency room stat.

A good friend recently visited a hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was absolutely floored by the clarity of the architectural signage and the wayfinding plan of the hospital. Designers may quibble with the bright, Crayola colors, but make no mistake: my friend, a medical professional himself who works in one of the largest healthcare research institutions in the US, and whose own patients are routinely at least half an hour late because of the hospital’s bad wayfinding, was impressed with how easy it was to find exactly what he was looking for at the Canadian facility.

Yes, bright, canary-yellow may not be the most pleasing aesthetic choice, but its visibility and contrast with the heavy, black print make for arresting and therefore easily scanned signs. What’s more, the hospital used color-coding to direct visitors, patients and staff to different wings and buildings and carried through with the color scheme on its directories.

To make wayfinding even easier, the hospital also included clear, easy-to-understand directional symbols on the floor that also continued the same color scheme as those on the wall signage. Note that the hospital chose to highlight what are likely the most requested locations, including the parking lot, the information desk and the emergency room.

People searching for the Cardiac Echo lab, for example, are instructed by the above signage to “follow the red floor line,” which you can see towards the bottom-left half of the photo above.

Regardless of how you feel about the color palette above, surely you’ll agree that the wayfinding solution has done its primary job: to direct people to their destination quickly, effortlessly and efficiently.

I’d love to hear your own examples of great hospital wayfinding solutions. Feel free to share them in the comments section below!

Posted by Liz Kelly

Clark-Devon Harware: Custom Exterior Signage and Brand Solution

23 Dec 2010

http://www.youtube.com/v/QOGMIOR1gmI?fs=1&hl=en_US

This is something you have to see to believe.

The Chicago-area icon – Clark Devon Hardware – wanted to upgrade its storefront as part of an effort to beautify the neighborhood. Because Clark Devon is a “mom-and-pop” hardware store in a world of “big-box” stores, it needed a solution that suits its traditional appeal. The owners of Clark Devon Hardware wanted a symbol that represented the charm of quaint town squares – a clock to be perched atop the store with an electronic message center (EMC) that scrolls the date, the time and other information as needed.

Bluestone and Associates was hired by Clark Devon to design the project. Bluestone sought out ASI for recommendations on material options and viable solutions to achieve the design intent. ASI coordinated the manufacturing and installation efforts for the Clark Devon project because ASI is a proven, experienced leader in managing complex, custom architectural signage projects.

Van Bergen, a major U.S. custom clock and chime maker, built the actual clock, which contains many moving parts that are replicas of items found on the hardware store shelves. Giant wrenches were used for the hands, huge nuts and bolts represent numbers, and a massive saw blade, with the statement “Since 1924”, rotates in the center clock to signify Clark Devon’s historical presence in the Chicago area. ASI fabricated the supporting outer rings of the clock as well as the metal lettering on the clock face.

The Clark Devon building itself was reinforced with steel in order to support the weight of the massive 3200 lb., 11-foot diameter clock. While some pre-assembly was possible, details such as the lettering on the face of the clock and lighting were completed after installation – a process that attracted quite a bit of attention from the neighborhood. The clock continues to garner attention and admirers from all over, especially the residents of the Rogers Park community.

Service Offerings

Engineering Design
Manufacturing
Installation

Product Applications

Custom Stainless Fabrication
LED Display Stainless Cover
LED Halo Lit Exterior Logo
Electronic Message Center (EMC)

Solution Partners

Bluestone and Associates – designer
Van Bergen – producer
Tesko Enterprises – manufacturing facility
Surelight Signs – installation assistance

Posted by Liz Kelly

SEGD Survey Results on Sustainable Practices in Architectural Signage

23 Dec 2010

Our good friends over at the Green Resource Guide beat us to the punch with regards to making available survey results from SEGD about sustainability and incorporating this practice into current and future architectural signage projects. Check out this summary from the Green Resource Guide and click here to open a PDF with the survey results.

“In September, the SEGD conducted a members survey regarding the incorporation of sustainable practices in projects. Over 86% of respondents said they are trying to incorporate sustainable practices in their work with a range of approaches, from direct-to-substrate printing to maximizing the use of local materials, using materials with high recycled content levels, and designing modular elements when possible. The survey yielded great results and insight. Universities, Museums and Healthcare ranked as the top three market segments for sustainable project.

The survey results are posted on SEGD’s Green Resource Guide site.

Posted by Liz Kelly

ADA Signage and Universal Design: Universal Healthcare Symbols

23 Dec 2010

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a client, a would-be client, or a sign geek. I happen to be the latter, and something I really geek out on is the whole idea of universal symbols –commonly known in the signage industry as pictograms — to improve universal design access and maximize wayfinding ada signage performance. You’re probably already familiar with a few universal symbols such as the following:

Hospital settings, however, surprisingly have few universal healthcare symbols. Nearly everyone recognizes the big blue “H” sign that indicates that a hospital is nearby, but when it comes to actually navigating your way through the maze of corridors, double-doors, and “mystery” hallways, it can be nothing short of an ordeal. Hospital staff can spend a good deal of their time just giving directions to visitors, patients and even fellow staff members unfamiliar with a facility’s layout.

Well, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Hablamos Juntos want to change all of that. Working with the Society for Environmental Graphic Design, the partnership recently finalized a series of universal symbols designed to facilitate wayfinding in healthcare facilities. The process of conceptualizing, researching, designing, analyzing, and finally selecting the symbols took several years and involved intense focus group discussions and rigorous testing using methods adopted by the International Standards Organization. Ultimately the group was able to winnow the selection down to 28 symbols that it found were most effective at conveying the appropriate information to visitors and patients and which also conformed to ADA guidelines.

The 28 symbols represent some of the most commonly referenced functions and locations in a typical hospital, including (but not limited to):

Waiting Rooms
Pharmacies
Billing Departments
Operating Rooms
Emergency Rooms
Pediatrics
Radiology
Cardiology

The panel did find that while some symbols were easily recognized by the vast majority of test subjects, some were less obvious (e.g., Oncology), indicating that further education to the general population is necessary to truly make all the symbols universal. Note that the symbols not only target the non-English speaking segment of the population – which in many communities represent a large proportion of hospital visitors and patients – but also the many, many Americans who find hospitals in general difficult to navigate. The symbols have already been installed and tested in several facilities across the United States, including the International Community Health Services facility in Seattle. As the symbols gain widespread acceptance and public awareness, the hope is that they truly become the “universal language” in healthcare settings here and around the world. So, what do you think of the symbols? Can you match the symbol to the function or department it’s meant to represent? Do you think that these will improve healthcare wayfinding, especially as they become more widely adopted?

http://www.hablamosjuntos.org/signage/symbols/default.using_symbols.asp#wsa

Posted by Liz Kelly