Book Review: The Wayfinding Handbook

Wayfinding is something we do, without being fully conscious of it, to orient ourselves in a space, interior or exterior. Though there is no science to navigate or explore your way through a city, wayfinding professionals can design spaces with just enough interactive cues for everyone to understand the ever changing and organic environments we live in. The Wayfinding Hanbook: Information Design For Public Spaces by David Gibson, sheds some light on how space circulation paths can be made to communicate with us and make navigation just a bit easier.

So, taking a step back, let us ask first; who is a wayfinding/environmental graphic designer and is that even a major in college? I wondered about that when I first got this book but Gibson cleared my confusion by explaining that, "wayfinding is a subset of environmental graphic design, a larger discipline that embraces many specializations including architecture and design graphic communications, maps, exhibitions, products and interiors." So this is a derivative of a marriage of various professions, talents and experience as an environmental graphic design education does not yet exist.

So understandably, this is a system that is firmly integrated in the design process of any project as the wayfinding consultant must anticipate "visitor patterns" and understand the decisions people make as they follow the path to their destination. These have been explained by Gibson as, "approach, enter and find." At each stage, the visitor must "make decisions based on the available and readily visible information" at hand. So the job of the designer is to provide a seamless and informative visitor transition through the space so that they reach their desired destination without the kind of frustrated wandering I often experience at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Adequate wayfinding systems link people together, tourists and residents, by guiding them through a space's circulation via a single system of communication, creating "a public narrative of how people witness, read and experience the space." But since not all spaces are the same due to varying locations and program, most wayfinding systems can be divided into four categories of signs: identification, directional, orientation and regulatory. Identification signs are visual markers that mark transitions from one space to another, directional provide the necessary cues for circulation, orientation signs offer visitors an overview of their surroundings(site maps) and regulatory signs outline the do's and don'ts of a space.

What I would consider the most important part of the process is signage location. "Site programming begins with an analysis of arrival, departure and decision points." These are the key areas where signage is needed to guide one through the space on the the desired destination. How many times have we exited a train at a station and been baffled as to where to go next? Better signage at important points in the visitor's journey through the space would allow for better transition.

This is a very good book for, anyone who might want to enter the growing and often overlooked field of environmental graphic design, and also for architects as well. It allows you to think as the users of the space would not just in terms of experiencing the architecture, but also the ability to navigate through it with relative ease. David Gibson shows how simple signage at optimum spots in a design can enhance the building program both inside and out as the most innovative and awe-inspiring building designs are nothing if people can't find their way through them. The material in this text is presented in a concise but easily understood manner with colorful graphic illustrations explaining each section.