Five minutes with Jeffrey Ludlow
Jeffrey Ludlow, creative director of Madird-based design studio, Point of Reference, speaks to Transform magazine about the role signage plays in brand design and how it enhances brand experience.
What role does signage play in brand design?
Signage plays a small supporting part at best as a brand touchpoint, but it's importance depends on the type of client and/or sector. For example, a bank and its interiors will heavily rely on the brand signals of colour and type on its signage, but it's not significant or memorable to the experience. Brand supporting, yes, but also brand background. However, if a fastfood restaurant menu is not legible, you're going to remember that experience and it will inherently affect the brand. Sometimes signage is integral to the experience of the brand and other times not so much. Take for example museums, where wall space is premium real estate. In a museum signage system you're doing the most to be least intrusive, as opposed to in a bank or restaurant. Signage as a system has the ability to be redundant, background or minimal. Its role depends largely on the context.
In what ways has signage changed during the pandemic and how are brands relating to it differently?
I think we are all more conscious of signage due to the pandemic. Our public space is now demarcated and layered with more information: how far to stay apart, to wear mask, how to wash hands etc. I tend to think that signage is a typographic reflection of where we are as a culture. Think of the signs of segregation in Jim Crow US, or the hot button issue of binary gender pictograms, signage is anything but neutral. It reflects our society even if it is as small as a caption. I remember that in the 90's, most chain restaurants in the US only had one bilingual sign (English and Spanish) that asked employees to wash their hands within the bathrooms. I thought how insulting that was to all Spanish speakers, that a corporation would only speak to its employees in Spanish to discuss hygiene issues. I hope that in the new age, where brands are focusing on purposy, they will be more sensitive to language, so that placement and content in signage becomes a larger priority. Signage is a great way for brands to show true initiative about change, rather than purpose washing.
How does signage enhance brand experience or spatial experience?
Whenever I hear people outside of our office and non-designers speak about signage, it is often to complain about it. Whether it be the wayfinding strategy or an actual sign, something did not help them in reaching their destination. Ironically signage, if done well, is rarely applauded. It's a design high wire act, fail miserably or go unnoticed as the silent servant. That being said, that doesn't take away from the signage enhancing an experience or a space. Signage as a system has the capacity to make a complex spatial experience mananagble. It also has the capacity to work in tandem with the architecture, the space and the materials to create a sense of place.
One of my favourite small airports is Toronto's Billy Bishop. Porter, is one of the slickest small airline brands. Its home airport's signage creates a sense of place. It abides to all the airport signage norms we know of, like gate signs, but does so in a subtle Porter brand colour and typography. It is a great example of brand ownership of a location via signage. All the touchpoints are on brand and create a unique experience. That is an extreme example but there are also subtle examples of placemaking with signage. The house numbers floated off the wall of a mid century modern house, would never be in Times New Roman as it just wouldn't make sense. Architecture has a sensibility that signage responds to.
To what extent does signage inform the work that POR Studio does?
We are constantly researching the topic, whether it be materiality, or typography, or looking into the history of signage. We have an instagram channel that is just dedicated to showing signage references, but rather than being another curated channel for new designers, we look towards the past. We dig out old references, like the Expo 70 Osaka Signage, but also share stories about the cultural relevance of signage. It's a topic that although it is quotidian, that it communicates to all of us in some way.
