Wayfinding: Graphic Design in the Built Environment

Catalog description

What is it to find one's way? Wayfinding encompasses the ways in which people orient themselves via the organization of sensory cues from the environment. As a noun, it refers to the use of design elements (text, pictograms, signage, color, etc.) to assist in navigating a physical space. It also pertains to the planning and decision-making we engage in when aiming for destinations outside our immediate sensory field. As a discipline, informed by the demand for sustainability and inputs from cognitive studies, it has grown into a field of research in its own right, closely tied with architecture and urban planning. The course elucidates the foundational design components of wayfinding and its theoretical, social, and political ramifications, with a dual focus on inclusive and cross-cultural design. Students in the class will investigate how we cope with the feeling of disorientation and what we can learn from millennia-old analog practices before GPS. The course's experiential learning will include a disorientation walk in the Forest of Fontainebleau and hands-on workshops on the Paris Metro signage system - led by the people who designed it! - where students will conceive, design, and test their own maps. Please note: this course may not be taken by students who have already taken CADT-UH 1020 Wayfinding.