Mike Oustamanolakis, PhD

Two campuses, one month

People kept getting lost, so I split a signage brief into two problems.

Problem

Two campuses of five or six buildings each, so large that people crossed them by bicycle, scooter and golf car.

Visitors, inspectors and officials kept getting lost. Architects and interior designers had tried signage before, and none of it had stuck.

What I did

  • Split the brief in two. Finding your way needed names and paper. Finding a machine’s documents needed a small app.
  • Named places after cities and exits after poets, in English and Chinese on every sign.
  • Put it on one real floor in the first week, then agreed the rollout with management step by step.

Result

1 month

Live on both campuses, against a two-month plan.

Visitors, inspectors and officials found their way unaided. The client was left a kit to extend the signage and the app themselves.

BeforeAfter
Places known by codes only insiders could read
Places named after cities, safety exits after classical poets
Visitors, inspectors and officials getting lost
Found their way unaided
Signage schemes by architects that had not stuck
Both languages on every sign, with arrows to the two nearest exits
Two months agreed for delivery
Delivered in one

Two campuses, five to six buildings each. 2018–2020.

Four posters from the series, re-created. Each names a place after a city and points to the two nearest exits, named after poets. These sit alongside the mandated green exit signs; they do not replace them.
Three screens from the phone app, re-created with sample data. Sites withheld.

Who

Client
NDA · Electronics manufacturer
Region
Mainland China, 2018–2020
Scale
Two campuses of five to six buildings each
My role
Led the service design and its delivery through my consultancy.

The situation

Two campuses, five or six buildings each, so large that people crossed them by bicycle, scooter and golf car. People kept getting lost. Architects and interior designers had already tried, and several signage schemes had not stuck. The job came to me as signage.

Who it was for

Workers, engineers and mechanics, visitors, health inspectors and government officials. Engineers who did not speak Chinese often flew in, and needed a guide to get around.

What I found

Conversations with factory workers shaped the concept. A code on a wall gives nobody a reason to remember it. A name people already know does. And the brief held two problems, not one. Only one of them needed software.

One signage brief, split into two problems.

What I decided

  1. Named places after cities, and exits after poets. Poets are never places, so an exit cannot be mistaken for a destination. The named exits sit alongside the mandated green exit signs; they do not replace them.
  2. Put both languages on every sign and screen. The client required English beside Chinese, so visiting engineers could manage without a guide.
  3. Put what a machine needs on its own page. Manuals in both languages, its own checklists, its last inspection, who is responsible and the nearest exit.
  4. Left the client a kit. They could extend the signage and the app themselves.
The name lists behind the posters, with three examples from each.
Before: places identified by codes such as Building 4, Floor 2, Area 17, and Exit 3-B. After: places named after cities, such as Nanjing, and safety exits named after classical poets, such as Du Fu. How a place was identified BEFORE Building 4 · Floor 2 Area 17 · Exit 3-B → AFTER 南京 Nanjing Exit: ← 杜甫 Du Fu Codes have to be learned. Names are already known.
Redrawn from the original designs. The factories and their locations are withheld.

The objection

Management first wanted new technology: large screens, and integrations that did not exist and would have had to be built. Half of my answer was paper and names, so it could go on a real floor in the first week. That floor showed them the speed for the cost, and that no one needed onboarding. Agreement then came step by step, through the staged rollout.

How agreement was won: one step at a time.

What changed

What this case cannot say

See the directory working (prototype, sample data) →