Wayfinding Sign system

For my Wayfinding sign system I want to create an ambiguous coded system that has to be learnt in order to follow, this is due to nature of the system's use; for anxious people to avoid highly populated areas. The aim is for the signs not to be so obvious therefore those who aren't educated about their meaning, they don't judge those who react to these signs, not to assume they would be judgmental however often those who have anxiety would rather not make this obvious.

I did some research on Agoraphobia and drew inspiration from this psychology research:

Lawton 1996 highlights participants suffering from spatial anxiety show incorrect landmark identifications (full quote in sketchbook).

Looking at sign systems that are more conceptual I found...

XBOX 360 advertising campaign

I also particularly like this design for Involving Systems' Tumblr page, inspiring me to look into the more humanistic elements of my piece, particularly due to the nature of the context. I also liked the idea of adding layers, much like the way these people are duplicated.

I did some research walking around Leeds following masses of people, locating areas with high density 'people traffic' and mapped out areas I feel would be appropriate to install my way-finding system. Trinity Leeds shopping centre and areas around here seemed the most conjested, Headrow and Woodhouse lane were also other destinations. Maps are shown in my sketchbook.

I therefore experimented with basic profile images of faces, the addition of each layer symbolic of the rise in human traffic. This does however seem to obvious to me, distracting from the fact this way-finding system is supposed to be ambiguous.








To me however I wanted this to be less obvious, more personal also to my own experience of visualisations of anxiety; for me this is tentacles.

I then experimented with variations of this design, changing fills and layouts with the addition of colour like a traffic light system indicating

The bottom indicates a slightly over populated area, the middle even more and the top highlighting this is an area of highly dense overpopulation, suggesting this area should be avoided. 

Rationale 

I aim to create a way-finding system that is ambiguous and has to be learnt , purely for those who have anxiety and want to avoid areas with high population/ human traffic, the emphasis is on always directing people away as opposed to towards. Those with Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterised by symptoms of anxiety is situations where the person perceives the environment to be unsafe with no easy way to get away. Therefore by initially being alerted to these densely populated areas and avoiding them panic attacks can be avoided. Thinking about my own visual representation of anxiety, I've always visualised tentacles. I aim to use these as pictograms as they're ambiguous, the larger the tentacle representative of the higher the population density. My initial idea of using outlines of profiles in layers was too obvious I found and if seen in succession with variations of numbers of these layers people could figure out the meaning too easily. 

For me Jan van Toorn speaks truth when he says "I do not believe that a designer can adopt [...] the position of neutral intermediary [...] you are a subjective link." As I developed this idea on my own personal understanding and visual representation of the context, as I'm sure each individual has their own metaphorical visualisation. The black backgrounds are furthermore conveying the idea of a black tar like substance I imagine the tentacles emerge from and visually suggest negativity. 

By making the pictograms so ambiguous the most part of the audience being people walking through Leeds will be unaware of the meaning, this is a positive as those with anxiety may be less concerned about people noticing their disposition as they react to the signs meanwhile others may not take notice or just remain confused. I aim to now think about how these signs could possibly be harder to locate so they possibly have to be found, possibly smaller prints in the form of stickers next to road signs or specific lampposts. 

Subjectivity/ Objectivity 

A debate arised in Wim Crouwel and Jan Van Toorn's: The Debate, the subject matter of objectivity vs subjectivity arises. I side with the view of Van Toorn, in that "I do not believe that a designer can adopt [...] the position of neutral intermediary [...] you are a subjective link." This is relevant to my project and coincides with my rationale as the visual elements of my way-finding system I've drawn from my own personal metaphorical representations of anxiety, therefore this system is incredibly difficult to understand unless it is taught, making it a very subjective piece as I am the "subjective link." Wim Crouwel opposes this theory as he practices objective design work and feels we should not be such an influence personally as designers, "I must never stand between the message and the recipient. Instead I'll try to present the issue as neutrally as possible." 

This obviously is relevant and a necessity in certain circumstances however for my way-finding system is the complete opposite of what's contextually appropriate. However in circumstances such as way-finding systems for airports, the system has to be internationally recognisable, many circumstances in design in general this will also be appropriate however I can empathise more with Van Toorn's perspective as I personally believe art and and form of design can be influenced and enriched if inspiration is drawn from personal experiences, theories and outlooks; visually and conceptually. 

Further Research and Development

I now want to further experiment with photography, line, colour and so on. Some ideas I have at the moment are to buy a squid and play around with photography. 

Finding these images from Oliver Fay's instagram really struck a cord with me as years ago I drew an image of flowers and vines wrapped round the tentacles representative of anxiety, indicating how it can be suppressed and covered with something beautiful on the surface, I extended this idea in my A-level art piece through collage, the top layer featuring delicate watercolour flowers representative of 'putting on a brave face' and highlighting how somebody man appear calm and collected when in reality under the surface it's a different story.

Armin Hofmann

"Primary in black and white posters is to counteract the trivialization of color as it exists today on billboards and in advertising."

This theory works well with my black and white designs as I've tried to avoid them appearing as any form of advertisement, however there is concern these may appear to be indication of an aquatic centre. His latter piece 'ABC' I found is good at representing the 'suffocation' element the tentacles represent. I want to look deeper into how I can get across this concept that to be anxious is to be suffocated visually, I aim to experiment with line and possibly typography.

However mainly I want to explore the photographic elements and try show constraint through collage, possibly by exposing photographs with a gradient of colour or fading to black as well as pixelation. To represent entanglement I want to experiment with an actual squid, fish net tights as well as expanding foam. 

Charlotte Nash 

Nash uses expanding foam bursting through patterned tights which I feel embodies constraint really well, the addition of colour transforms these sculptures into sea creatures or coral like organisms. Experimenting with expanding foam through fishnet tights, I also found this quite disturbing sculpture by Howie Tsui, 'Siamese Destiny' made with polyurethane expanding foam, this perfectly encapsulates entanglement due to the context and visually shows how these twins are inseparable and entangled. I love the chaotic elements of collage and aim to push myself into this medium as I feel it's the most appropriate to represent anxiety, as often a collision of emotions. 

Howie Tsui, 'Siamese Destiny' (2012)

Ephémère

Bart Hess

Hess uses a thick slime substance and coats his models, this perfectly embodies suffocation, as well as blurring the lines between material and the body. While the material sits on top of the skin the transparency is suggestive of another layer of skin, or the possibility of them being combined. I love the fluidity of the material as it drapes and slowly dribbles, wrapping itself perfectly around the body, as if it were drowning them, I could possibly work with a substance with similar qualities.

I went out and bought fake flowers, fishnet tights, cling film and after realising expanding foam was in fact banned from the college, found another form of softer foam from ceramics, which when mized expanded 4 times its former liquid state size and bubbled, with sticky qualities. My initial photographs I took making the collage on top of a light box but the lighting was too dark, it did however really highlight the air bubbles in the foam material.

These are some original images I took using the lightbox but I found the lighting although it illuminated the air bubbles in the foam well, was too dark for the collage materials:

 

These photographs are cropped images of those that I used a scanner to capture. 

I love the way the cling film embodies suffocation further, I initially tried to straighten it out as it was purely to be used for health and safety reasons, however I noticed the creases really emphasised the idea of compression, mirroring Bart Hess' 'slime' like substances effect as it wraps around the materials. For a few of the images I also experimented with distortion by moving the collage around as I was scanning it creating ripples and colour alterations particularly on the film cover.

Developing these images further and taking into account some form of 'scale' I started experimenting with filters to distort visibility, resembling an increase in population as the image is less muted using a patchwork filter on the middle row. The top show a progression of distortion which could indicate higher populated areas; the more distorted and 'suffocated' with the increase also in tentacles, the more people traffic.

I went round and asked people which was the most effective in communicating my ambiguous message. The majority of people preferred the first row of signs, however many did comment on the left pixelated image on the second set of images stating it was not only aesthetically pleasing, but puts across this idea of a vague meaning and hidden message that has to be less pixelated in order for the viewer to see, however the image on the right is still a confusing one unless the sign system is learnt, which is obviously a positive in terms of the context of my signs. I found the middle image too light however and would agree the first row of images are more effective as they look more like a consistent series, the distortion a more fluid one representative of the incline in population, despite the fact the images are all different scans, which is interesting as the middle images look less consistent despite the fact they're all the same image. The last row was a later edition going back to my first idea of not having any distortion, but just having the addition of more tentacles, symbolic of more populated areas. I do still however prefer the top row as I feel the distortion adds another dimension of visualised metaphorical suffering. 

The burst of colour from the flower I feel adds a layer of irony to the signs, almost as a cover up. I especially like how the tentacles are emerging from the flower, the flower symbolises a concealer, as with anxiety often a brave face is put on, the pale pink a purposely delicate tone, perhaps a blushing cheek. 

Mocking up

Crit

The crit I had was really useful, people seemed to really like the concept but pointed out despite the indication of the higher and lower populated areas, there was no way of knowing how to avoid such areas and get to quieter areas. It almost served a negative purpose as the audience would be alerted to this 'high people traffic' symbol but then no know how to avoid it or which direction to go to escape, causing greater anxiety. 

Remedying this, we discussed how when people are often anxious or those with low self confidence they tend to stare at the floor, therefore in keeping with the theme of the signs being hidden, they could be placed as stickers on the bottom of lamppost polls, extending onto the floor. By extending the image onto the floor I can indicate direction to a quieter area by cutting a tentacle out of the image which will act as an arrow. This is still intentionally ambiguous, yet does give actual directions, I may also outline the whole sticker with pastel pink matching the Lily featured as this sensitive, delicate colour.

Second Crit 

From feedback from the frist crit, I changed my initial design by defining them more as arrows in order for people to navigate away from highly populated areas, rather than just being alerted to the fact they are so, which may make them even more anxious as they're unsure of where to redirect themselves. Using the outline of a tentacle as a sticker on the floor (with the 'head' on the bottom of a lampost) people can navigate away from people traffic, in this crit people suggested in addition to this it may be a good idea to extend this as it's potentially ambigious which direct way to get away from this dense area, so by having stickers of suckers in the same pink trailing away from the lamppost , small and widely spaced out so as to not attract too much attention I believe would be the most appropriate so as to diminish suspicion. Someone suggested I sacrifice the collage interior of the stickers however I think the collage works best as it demonstrates the chaos visually that is anxiety, I feel without this it may just look like directions towards a fish market or aquarium. 

I now want to make the stickers and stick them up on lamposts and floors. It's interesting to think that these will fade away/ be ripped up over time, as the highly populated areas may change over time, the idea this is a temporary measure is important, especially for example over holidays and such where students may once populate specific areas in large numbers can then go to being incredibly quiet. 

I then made the 'suckers' which will act as a trail, leading away from areas of high human traffic making clear there's a route away from these areas, rather than just alerting people of how populated these areas are.