Emily Badger explores the art of environmental graphic design, or wayfinding, and what it takes to strike the right balance between intuitive navigation and individual discovery.
Badger makes a distinction between intuitive older European cities and complex contemporary cities that require guidance to navigate, and the often subconscious ways in which wayfinding should operate on the latter.
"Architectural signage and wayfinding isn't about building a nicely designed sign," says Sue Labouvie, one such expert whom we tapped to explain the science of helping us find our way in the city. "It's about the information content and the analysis of the space or place that you're trying to move people through, and coming up with a strategy of how you make this big complex thing simple and understandable to the user."
FULL STORY: The Surprisingly Complex Art of Urban Wayfinding

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City of Morganton
San Joaquin County
University of New Mexico - School of Architecture & Planning
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
Park City Municipal Corporation
National Capital Planning Commission
City of Santa Fe, New Mexico
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