OUGD405: Studio Brief 01 - Wayfinding - Primark

Primary Photos: 

Taken on iPhone

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Taken on camera

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Although this is a poorly constructed 3D model of the directions towards Primark's fitting room. It displays the direction of the way finding design which consists of only the arrows to guide the person towards their designated location. The purpose of this is to display a gradient towards the location the consumer needs to get to. It was also to be able to move the placement of the arrows easily and in a physical way to display which placement would be more appropriate for way finding. In some places the floor might be an appropriate method but because Primark can easily become an overcrowded space, a higher placement on the wall or ceiling seems like a more appropriate method so that costumers can look up and over people's heads to find directions instead of trying to look down in between peoples feet for directions that would easily be misconstrued if it was busy.
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This is my first attempt of mocking up a way finding design on to the actual lay out of Primark. It displays the concept of the colours becoming a gradient throughout the building to guide you to different areas. It will be a varied shade of blue because that is Primark's most dominant colour. The design's purpose is to be visual and simple for people to navigate around the store. The design features triangles towards the ceiling so that people needing directions can look up and over other costumers heads if the shop is busy which Primark tends to be a crowded shopping experience so the design would be difficult to see if placed on the floor like some way finding methods, although it is effective in some places, it is not as an appropriate method for places that usually contain large quantities of people. Especially in a shop environment because if consumers want to shop efficiently they want to be able to divert themselves from A to B quickly by following the colours of the wall. To differentiate where the colours lead to there will be different shades of blue. For example, my mock up only displays the way to go for the Fitting Rooms but the design will feature a different shade of blue to direct the costumer to the Cash Desk and to different levels. The application of the design on the photographs still needs more improvement but this was just a rough idea of placement of the gradient and arrows.

Questions:

1.What do you think of my way finding concept? (I focused more on the visual aspect of the way finding communication rather than typography. Although I like Primark's current way finding because of it's aesthetics but it is impractical and difficult to navigate your way around the store. For example the escalator I physically had to wait until I had reached the end to photograph the way finding otherwise it was illegible and a health and safety hazard although it fits with the visual aesthetics of the shop.)

"- Your way finding concept is good because it does focus more on the visual side."
"-It is very simple and different. "

2. Are the arrows helpful or should there be text or more symbols too, if so what ones?
(I was originally going to place numbers within the triangles with a list of what goes where i.e: 1. Fitting Room 2. Cash Desk would that be more helpful to the reader visually?)
"- Vary the size of the arrows"
"- Even the positioning of the arrows could be slightly lower because they could still be perceived as too high. Maybe make them lower so that they are more eye level when people do a quick overview of the place."
"-Definitely experiment with the use of pictograms."

3. When told to experiment with pictograms I asked my crit group where they should be placed, within the arrow or outside?
"-They should be next to the arrow, they could look too busy inside of the arrow and become illegible at a smaller scale. It needs to be easy to read."