Getting a grasp of wayfinding guidelines and understanding what makes adequate signage was a challenge I faced while working on this project. I studied what makes signs readable, different styles of signs, fonts, and symbol usage. As a student designer, I had no prior experience with signage design, so much of my time went into researching in order to make good design decisions.

I explored existing signage and wayfinding methods. I narrowed down sign styles I found, and we settled on a style that features the city’s fleur-de-lis symbol floating as a background element. I provided some other existing imagery the clients enjoyed the format/shape of, and further based designs on those.

The signs were meant to be seen from the road. This meant I had to consider appropriate sizes for readability and ensure the contrast on the signage was accessible.

We worked to finalize the designs of the signs by experimenting and working through different sign shapes, styles, and fonts. A royal blue similar to the city’s school colors was implemented. A combination of the fonts Overpass and Noticia Text were applied. Mockups were made to roughly portray what the signs may look like at certain heights in a real world setting. The next step of this project is communicating with Ohio University Printing Services to get the signs made into their physical forms.