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Wayshowing
Project with prof. Per Mollerup
Per Mollerup book "Wayshowing"
Other prof. Per Mollerup books >>
Date
September 14-30, 2009
About project
Wayshowing at Vilnius Academy of Arts
The project described in the following deals with updating wayshowing at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and making the Academy the best signposted university in the country. Wayshowing includes several means that help visitors and regular users to orientate and navigate, to know where they are, and to find their way to a wanted destination.
Objectives
The obvious objective of the project is to help guests, faculty, and students to find their way around at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Bad wayshowing means irritation, wasted time, and bad reputation.
A second objective of this project is to take credit for the Academy’s role in Lithuanian culture and economy. The Academy must be visible in the most sensible ways.
A third objective of the wayshowing project is to show that the Academy takes its own medicine: Physician, heal it self. The Academy teaches graphic design, and uses graphic design.
The result of a good wayshowing process is, one: a more effective school, and two: a school that more people will know and respect.
Means
Wayshowing can include five parameters:
Pre-visit information All the information that visitors and regular users get before arrival, e.g. on website and invitations.
Architecture Self-explaining architecture that facilitates orientation and navigation.
Toponomy Good names of places are conductive to good wayshowing.
Landmarks Landmarks are visual anomalies, outstanding architectural features and objects that visitors and regular users notice, remember, and talk about. Landmarks facilitate wayfinding.
Signage Signs for wayshowing can have five different functions:
Overview
Marking
Direction
Information
Regulation
Process
The process of establishing good wayshowing at Vilnius Academy of Arts can be sectioned in five parts:
Preparation Description of project
Planning
Budgetting
Organization (who decides and who does what)
Analysis Description of the problem
Sites
Names
Existing signage
Wayfinding problems
Strategy Wayshowing structure
Types of means
Types of needed sign functions (overview, marking, direction, information, regulation)
Design Graphic sign types
Physical sign types
Sign plan
Sign manual
Implementation Sign list
Sign specification
Choosing supplier
Ordering
Mounting
Evaluation
Organization
The wayshowing project should ideally be overseen by a steering committee that sets the objectives, approves the budget and the time plan, and monitors the project. Rector or Vice-Rector should chair the steering committee. Other members could be, the building manager, a professor of graphic design, and user representatives.
A wayshowing expert should assist the steering committee, and take the direct responsibility for the project. I offer to take on this role.
As a visiting professor, I will in a series of lectures to coincide with the project teach principles and practicalities in wayshowing design. Also, I will in a workshop involve students in the wayshowing process and let them do what they can do under professional guidance. That practice will give a contribution to teaching and save costs in the project. Work that can be done by students includes registration of present situation, registration of needs, and development of sign lists.
The core of the design process must necessarily be left to professionals. Mollerup Designlab A/S of Copenhagen, with me as a project manager, offers to do this central part of the job.
Branding
The wayshowing project can be developed as a solitary project. However, there will be considerable synergy if the Academy at the same time takes its branding up for renewed consideration. The visual appearance of the school should, apart from wayshowing, include all visual communication media such as website, brochures, and correspondence.
The graphic design chair of the Academy could execute the branding job – strictly coordinated with the wayshowing project.
Wayshowing at Vilnius Academy of Arts
The project described in the following deals with updating wayshowing at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and making the Academy the best signposted university in the country. Wayshowing includes several means that help visitors and regular users to orientate and navigate, to know where they are, and to find their way to a wanted destination.
Objectives
The obvious objective of the project is to help guests, faculty, and students to find their way around at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Bad wayshowing means irritation, wasted time, and bad reputation.
A second objective of this project is to take credit for the Academy’s role in Lithuanian culture and economy. The Academy must be visible in the most sensible ways.
A third objective of the wayshowing project is to show that the Academy takes its own medicine: Physician, heal it self. The Academy teaches graphic design, and uses graphic design.
The result of a good wayshowing process is, one: a more effective school, and two: a school that more people will know and respect.
Means
Wayshowing can include five parameters:
Pre-visit information All the information that visitors and regular users get before arrival, e.g. on website and invitations.
Architecture Self-explaining architecture that facilitates orientation and navigation.
Toponomy Good names of places are conductive to good wayshowing.
Landmarks Landmarks are visual anomalies, outstanding architectural features and objects that visitors and regular users notice, remember, and talk about. Landmarks facilitate wayfinding.
Signage Signs for wayshowing can have five different functions:
Overview
Marking
Direction
Information
Regulation
Process
The process of establishing good wayshowing at Vilnius Academy of Arts can be sectioned in five parts:
Preparation Description of project
Planning
Budgetting
Organization (who decides and who does what)
Analysis Description of the problem
Sites
Names
Existing signage
Wayfinding problems
Strategy Wayshowing structure
Types of means
Types of needed sign functions (overview, marking, direction, information, regulation)
Design Graphic sign types
Physical sign types
Sign plan
Sign manual
Implementation Sign list
Sign specification
Choosing supplier
Ordering
Mounting
Evaluation
Organization
The wayshowing project should ideally be overseen by a steering committee that sets the objectives, approves the budget and the time plan, and monitors the project. Rector or Vice-Rector should chair the steering committee. Other members could be, the building manager, a professor of graphic design, and user representatives.
A wayshowing expert should assist the steering committee, and take the direct responsibility for the project. I offer to take on this role.
As a visiting professor, I will in a series of lectures to coincide with the project teach principles and practicalities in wayshowing design. Also, I will in a workshop involve students in the wayshowing process and let them do what they can do under professional guidance. That practice will give a contribution to teaching and save costs in the project. Work that can be done by students includes registration of present situation, registration of needs, and development of sign lists.
The core of the design process must necessarily be left to professionals. Mollerup Designlab A/S of Copenhagen, with me as a project manager, offers to do this central part of the job.
Branding
The wayshowing project can be developed as a solitary project. However, there will be considerable synergy if the Academy at the same time takes its branding up for renewed consideration. The visual appearance of the school should, apart from wayshowing, include all visual communication media such as website, brochures, and correspondence.
The graphic design chair of the Academy could execute the branding job – strictly coordinated with the wayshowing project.
Project consist of:
Workshop
Open lectures
Final presentation
Coordinator
Prof. Audrius Klimas
