Orientation & Identity

Terra incognita Signaletik | Erwin K. Bauer & Dieter Mayer
What term do designers use to define their job? How comprehensive
is their view of their job? Architects can explain things easily;
their profile is clear-cut. Their job description has been more or
less the same since antiquity. Their duties cover the planning, management
and construction a building, all within the context of
spatial design.
Things are much more difficult when it comes to graphic design,
a relatively young discipline. The typographer William Addison
Dwiggins coined the term in 1922. It was associated with the artistic
ideal of a draftsman for a long time. But this image is subject to
constant transformation because of the changing tools that the job
involves, especially new media. The field of two-dimensional design
has become more diverse. Typographers, illustrators, editorial and
brand designers, web, animation and information designers are
all best described as communication designers. They all formulate
and design messages in media-adequate ways that are meant to
target and reach the beholder.
It was feared 30 years ago that specialists would become isolated
as their specialized knowledge increased, but the division of
work common today has led to new and advantageous cooperation
forms. The increasing complexity of tasks demands ever more
com petent specialists and requires flexible, interdisciplinary project
teams. This flexibility includes thinking in terms of the work
methods and attitudes of other disciplines and absorbing other
inputs to achieve substantially better project results. Signage specialists
work at the intersection between two and three-dimensional
design. They follow the principle described above very closely
and link the goals of clients, architects, facility managers and the
various users with their work. A signage specialist needs “social
skills” aside from specific qualifications.
The borders of classical jobs and job descriptions are becoming
more and more blurred as the interdisciplinary work of a
signage specialist increases. The distance between two and threedimensional
design has narrowed. Architects present their building
as a digital 3D model that one can seemingly enter. Web designers
understand their online worlds as rooms that can be accessed.
The virtual depiction of space has created new possibilities to experience
space before it is physically built.
Signage specialists make use of this advantage to create an
image of a place during the design phase. A signage specialist can
identify the character of a place and shape it; he sets waypoints
and designs the space so the signage and the architecture are perceived
as one unit. He assumes the role of the users of a building
during his planning. He wanders through it in his mind and takes
the different expectations and information requirements into
account. What seems to be about simple lettering and putting up
signs is actually much more far-reaching.
Signage links surface and space
One of the first convincing examples of the synergetic linking of
architecture and visual design was the Piamio tuberculosis sanatorium
in Finland designed by Alvar Aalto. It was opened in 1933,
and the aim was to create a building that would contribute to the
patients’ healing process itself. Aalto used selected colors on the
hallway floors, the patients’ rooms and the surfaces along the generously
sized stairwells. These elements helped refine the design
of the building beyond its mere cubature.
This conscious staging by Aalto focused on the scenic effect
of spatial sequences. He used views of the outside and through the
building, and he also used the changes that come from entering or
leaving a room or space. The way and not just the rooms themselves
interested him. This is one of the significant differences to twodimensional
design. Classical graphic designers work with media
that integrate a static beholder in the communication. The medium,
whether it be a book, web site or animated film, is perceived from
a fixed position. In signage, as in architecture, the user is in motion.
The spatial backdrop becomes a scenic staging element. It acts as
a built, yet moving picture that serves as filmed scenery when the
beholders walk through it.
The signage specialist is the way’s architect
But he doesn’t build the way, instead, he has to analyze the possible
access ways a space or room offers. What is interesting
to the user? What spatial and visual impressions does he react to?
What is intuitively appealing to him? What would he do if he got
lost? Many different architectural factors such as view axes, room
heights, light trajectory and distances are already strong way
finding elements without the signage specialist’s influence. These
factors are his framework conditions. He observes, establishes
and reacts to them to be able to steer the user to the desired goal,