This article is out-dated. Please check out the this newer article about Wayfinding Sans Symbols:
http://opentype.info/blog/2013/01/21/wayfinding-sans-symbols/
Wayfinding symbols withOpenType magic ___________
Just amazing. How many years has this taken to bring to reality? About 25? from dingbats to now this highly customizable and amazingly versatile system — which, above all else — is beautifully designed!
It will be very interesting to see the rate of adoption once it is released. I say this because often in life, the simple knowledge of what is even available in one’s field, can take years to filter down. Why would I say this?
Because for the past few years I have been seeing these just gorgeous wayfinding systems in airports, hotels and shopping centers — by way of twitter feeds and subscribing to various “channels” of people working in this field. Inspiring and beautiful typography and iconography… Only to then see about a month ago a new wayfinding system debut in San Francisco — considered to be among the design capitals of the world — at the UCSF Hospitals across the city (University of California San Francisco).. which is so UN-inspirational. So basic. So unimaginative. So dated. So blahh.
I feel like it was derived from press-on type vinyl letters bought from an art supply store 25 years ago. And yet some company was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to develop and implement this system. I have seen it in use on two separate hospital “campuses” in San Francisco, and it basically meshes in with a whole bunch of EXISTING signage, so it doesn’t even replace all the bad clutter of mismatched and poorly placed signage. It just adds to it. Larger. More prominent. And yes, I am sure it is consistent. But blahhh.
And I am thinking, they could have employed a design school INTERN, and have them use your beautiful new system, and just “type” using the various # codes to select icon, and then background shape and color and overlay, and they would have ended up with a system probably about 100-times better than what is there now.
THAT’s how good this is. Keep up the good work.
Will this have latin extended chart?
Not sure what you mean. The symbol font will not have an extended character set – it’s a symbol font.
The Wayfinding Sans typeface sold separately will have latin, CE, cyrillic, greek, …
Hey, this looks nice, i like to use in my projects.
How can i access to a copy of this fonts for try?
Thanks in advance
This is a fantastic collection of symbols. Building (far less ambitious) fonts of this kind is part of my day to day work and I often find myself trying to strike a balance between practicality and design. However, I am usually working within the specific criteria of a project which makes design decisions more straightforward.
The only negative comment I have regarding the collection above is the aircraft landing symbol, which gives the impression of an imminent crash rather than a landing aircraft. I think this has to do with the angle of descent. Perhaps if the plane was more upright it would seem less so? Would the take off symbol then need to be adjusted too?
I am also intrigued by the numbers associated with the ‘P’ parking symbol. Is it possible to use an OT feature or some other aspect of the font to change this information for greater positive and negative numbers?
I look forward to seeing the final font.
I do quite a bit of work in museums and tend to use the pictograms that the Sloane House in the UK uses. Any chance if including those kind of symbols into Wayfinding Symbols? It would make it interesting as well for exhibition designers etc.
I don’t know how these pictograms look, but of course we are always interested in ideas about additional pictograms people might want to use.