SIGNS! SIGNS! SIGNS!

After a long process of trial and error the first sign prototypes are finally ready! The white text and imagery on the signs is made from reflective vinyl (the same stuff used for highway signage) and the signs themselves are 22 gauge steel. I'll be manufacturing the rest of the first round of signs (around 30 signs total) over the next two weeks. Installation will happen sometime in May (the exact date is still TBD). Thanks again to everyone who's helped out on this project so far!


Dimensions: 26"x 8"


Dimensions: 30"x 30"


Dimensions: 30"x 30"

Signage System Overview

After several weeks of workshops and conversations the Fourth Street Bikeway Project is creeping closer to implementation. Thank you to everyone who has participated so far. Your contributions — whether they came through the workshops or the website — have been invaluable in determining the content, form, and structure of this new signage system. Presented below is an overview of the entire system's structure.

If you have any suggestions or concerns feel free to post a comment or shoot me an email at semioticsoftheride at gmail dot com. I hope to be moving quickly on to the making of the actual signs so speak now or forever hold your peace.

Those who might be interested in assisting with the fabrication or installation of the signs please let me know. There is more than enough work to go around...

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The system consists of four different signage types. Each type has its own shape and communicates a specific kind of information. The four categories are Navigation, Caution, Connections & Points of Interest.

Diagram shows relative scale of sign types.
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NAVIGATION

The purpose of the Navigation sign is to make the route visible and provide wayfinding information to cyclists. There are two versions of this sign type.

The first is intended to speak to motorists and serves only to identify the route.


Dimensions: 26" x 8"

The second type of Navigation sign is aimed at cyclists and contains a more extensive range of information. In addition to identifying the route, the sign provides a basic map, an indicator that shows the cyclist's location on that map, distances to major intersections, the direction of travel, and the name of the neighborhood in which the sign is located.


Dimensions: 26" x 8"

The Navigation sign is the primary visual identifier of the route and is intended to accompany all other signs. Whenever another type of sign is used a Navigation sign will appear with it to supplement its message.




CAUTION

The purpose of the Caution sign in to provide warnings to cyclists and motorists. Some of these messages such as "Bike Xing" or "Cyclist Allowed Full Use of Lane" are addressed to drivers.


Dimensions: 28" x 28"

Other signs such as "Cross Traffic Does Not Stop" or "Uneven Road Surface" speak to cyclists.


Dimensions: 28" x 28"

Because these signs need to be read and understood quickly from a distance they are the largest of the system.


CONNECTIONS

This category of signs sereves to highlight the route's connections to other transportation options. These can either be public transportation such as Metro bus or rail...


Dimensions: 16" x 22"

Or other bicyle routes...


Dimensions: 16" x 22"

In both cases the signs try to communicate the essential information about the transportation option in order to give the cyclist choices about how he/she wish to plan his/her journey.



POINTS OF INTEREST

These signs highlight points on or near the route that could be of interest to the cyclist. These might include sites such as bike shops, grocery stores, post offices, parks etc.


Dimensions: 18" x 18"


Dimensions: 18" x 18"

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The system also contains an interactive element that allows cyclists to create their own signs.

Downloadable templates will be featured on the project website. These templates will be sized to fit on 8.5" x 11" paper so that all of the signs can be printed on a standard printer. The files will be formated as both Microsoft Word documents & PDFs with editable text fields. Once printed these signs can be laminated and hung by the cyclists themselves. The library of templates will start out small (mirroring the content of the permanent signs) but will expand over time based on user feedback.

Some examples...















And that's pretty much it. Once again thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. Look forward to hearing your feedback!

Workshop #2

“…it’s no use building it unless we dramatize it enough to make people use it. I’m all for making Walt Disney our next Mayor… the only man in the city who can get a working rapid transit system built without any more surveys, and turn it into a real attraction so that people will want to ride it.”

—Ray Bradbury on Public Transportation in LA

The second workshop in our three part series was held this past Sunday. It was a small group but discussion was lively and several decisions were made that gave further shape to our nascent signage system. As the Bradbury quote suggests one of the issues we dealt with was how to balance the functional needs of the signage with the need to create something fun and inviting.

Building off the prior workshop the discussion in this session focused on the look of the proposed signage. We talked about the need for a visual language that was both familiar enough to be legible and idiosyncratic enough to stand out from other signs. We looked at examples of signage and icons ranging from the banal to the highly expressive. I shared a series of possible bike route icons I had created and we discussed how those different stylistic approaches could effect the message we were trying to convey.


Some possible bike route icons.

Next it was time for a hands-on exercise. Armed with several mock-ups of signs (based on designs created in the previous workshop) we went outside to assess how these various visual approaches worked in a practical environment. We examined issues such as legibility and visual impact as well as optimum signage size and placement.


A few of the sign mock-ups that we evaluated.

From looking at the signs in situ we were able to draw several conclusions:

Commanding Attention: Signs that were overly expressive or light-hearted seemed to lack authority. On the other hand those that used overly familiar iconography were easier to ignore.

Keep it Simple: The more visually dense the sign the less powerful the primary message. With the Cross Traffic Doesn't Stop sign for instance the secondary information took away from the impact of the central message. A more effective strategy might be to separate the warning and the navigational info into two signs.


Make it Bigger: The same sign viewed from the saddle of a bike makes quite a different impression when seen from inside a car. Signs intended to address motorists need to be larger and higher placed then those intended soley for cyclists.

Now that we had some understanding of the practical and aesthetic requirements of signage iconography we tried our hands at designing our own bike icons. The exercise yielded several interesting possibilities. It also led to the observation that bike icons which featured bike and rider (as opposed to the standard bike-only icon) might serve to remind drivers that they were dealing with other humans not just machines — a realization that would hopefully encourage more congenial behavior.




Overall the workshop reinforced the importance of a few key points; first off the need for clarity in signage. The message of each sign (as well as the structure of the overall system) must be unambiguous and direct. Secondly it is important to remember that the visual language must maintain a degree of uniqueness in order to draw attention to the route and invite new users.

Thanks again to those who participated. I hope everyone can make it out for the final workshop next week. We will be looking at a draft of the complete system to determine what's working and what still needs more attention. We will also look at strategies for promoting the route. Please feel free to post questions and comments below.

Workshop #1

Thanks to everyone who braved the rain to make it out to the first workshop this past Sunday. We had a great group of people and some interesting discussions about the project.

To sum up for those who didn't attend the focus of the first workshop was on determining what type of information we want the signage system to communicate as well as how that information should be prioritized and presented.

We started the afternoon by looking at a map of the fourth street bike route. We marked information that we thought would be important for cyclists and motorists to know about the route. These pieces of info ranged from dangerous intersections to the location of a near-by farmer's market. Once we had finished brainstorming we broke down the information into several broad categories:

Route Information (distances, route destination, etc)
Other Bicycle Routes (both official and unofficial)
Route Hazards (rough roads, dangerous intersections, etc)
Public Transportation
Points of Interest
Shopping (with a particular emphasis on bike-friendly businesses)
Neighborhoods
Warnings to Motorists

On further discussion we decided that these categories could themselves be broken down into three further groupings based on their importance.

Category 1: Essential Information
Route Information
Route Hazards
Warnings to Motorists

Category 2: Transportation Network
Other Bicycle Routes
Public Transportation

Category 3: Local Color
Points of Interest
Neighborhoods
Shopping

A version of the map we created can be found online here:


View Larger Map

To add your own information to the map. Click on the View Larger Map link and hit the Edit button.

The second discussion of the day revolved around the fact that any signage system will have to communicate to a dual audience; cyclists and motorists. To try and understand the perspectives of each audience we made lists of some complaints cyclists have regarding motorists and that motorists have against cyclists. Looking at the two lists side by side we discovered that a lot of the complaints on both sides of the divide had to do with a lack of information or communication.

The final exercise of the day looked at the ways in which we could structure information to speak to these two audiences. We started by looking at a slide show of different types of signs. We discussed how the hierarchical structuring of information was used to communicate complex messages. We compared different signs to each other and discussed how much information is too much (or too little) to communicate to a viewer on the go. Then it was time to try our own hands at sign-making. Using a set of templates we created a series of our signs for the route featuring the information we had compiled earlier.

A few examples...









Overall we covered a lot of ground in this first workshop. The exercises and discussions yielded a wealth of information as well as a rough idea of how this information could be structured and presented to an audience. For the next workshop on Sunday February 10th we will start to get into more specifics about exactly how the signage will look and function. I look forward to another productive afternoon. If you missed the first workshop its not too late to join in, we'd love to have you come next week. In the meantime please feel free to chime in with any comments or thoughts in the comment section or on the route map.

Thanks!
Joe

Get Involved!

If you're a bicyclist living in LA you have probably noticed the poor quality of the city's bike route signage. Lacking in useful information and often invisible, these signs generally fail to command the attention of cyclists or motorists. Here's your chance to do better!

I'm seeking volunteers to participate in a project of communal design collaboration.

The goal: to transform an existing Los Angeles bike route through the creation of a new "unofficial" signage system.

This system will reflect the needs and desires of real LA cyclists and will be flexible enough to be modified and expanded over time by members of the cycling community.

To do this I will be holding a series of three short workshops over the next two months. Participants will help to make crucial decisions about the content and form of this system by taking part in a series of simple exercises.

Workshop # 1:

Sunday January 27th
Form & Content: What information should the new system communicate? How should it look?

Workshop #2
Sunday February 10th
Static vs Changeable: What elements of the final system should be open to revision and expansion by its users?

Workshop #3
Sunday February 24th
Testing and Evaluation: How does the final system work? What changes and improvements still need to be made?

After the completion of the workshops I will also be looking for a small group of volunteers to help me print and install the signs. Ideally I am looking for volunteers who can commit to participating in all three workshops but if you're interested in attending just one or two please let me know.

For more information please feel free to email me directly at semiotics.of.the.ride at gmail dot com. The workshop sizes will be fairly small so if you're interested in participating the sooner you let me know the better.

Bikes, Signs and Systems

Welcome to Semiotics of the Ride. This blog is part of a design research project exploring how graphic designers can work with members of a community to collaboratively create flexible & meaningful information systems.

The type of system that I am interested in investigating is environmental signage, more specifically bicycle route signage.

Why is it important that the user community be involved in the design of these systems? Take a look at the two images above. The top is an official bicycle route sign. It uses a widely understood visual language. You know at a glance what the sign is communicating. Unfortunately the depth of information is pretty shallow.

Now look at the second image. It communicates the type of information about the bicycle route that could only come from someone who uses it frequently and is familiar with its condition. Formally, however it lacks the simplicity and legibility of the first sign. It is not possible to ascertain its meaning without stopping to read it.

An ideal sign would combine the clarity and legibility of the first sign with the depth of knowledge of the second. The formal mastery of the designer and the experience and understanding of the user would combine to create an effective piece of communication.

This is precisely what this project hopes to do. To bring the user community into the design process in order to create signage that is more useful and appropriate to their needs.

To do this I will be holding a series of workshops with members of the Los Angeles cyclist community. The aim is to develop and implement an "unofficial" signage system for one LA bicycle route. A system that will have a high degree of legibility but will still have enough flexibility to allow its users to alter and expand upon it over time.

Dates and agendas for the workshop will be coming soon but in the meantime if you are interested in participating or learning more details drop me a line at semiotics.of.the.ride at gmail.com. Feel free to post comments and questions as well or complete the poll on the right. This project is all about collaboration so the more input I can get the better.

Thanks and keep checking back for updates!