the informational city · 2009-10-13 22:36
Another set of notes from a talk – this time Erik Spiekermann of Edenspiekermann and Tim Fendley of Applied Information Group – organised by the Research Unit for Information Environments & the Institute of Urban Information for the London Design Festival. Titled The Informational City, I was hoping for something, well, modern, touching on the new digital screen explosion in the city (which has been dragged by the marketers into the acronym DOOH – Digital Out Of Home). Whilst interesting and entertaining – never be late for Spiekermann – the talk could have been given pretty much any time from 1960 until 2007: the closest to modern technology it got was the Walk Brighton iPhone app, and Spiekermann’s Nokia font for mobile phone screens. I’m worried that both the academic and design communities are twiddling their thumbs whilst the screen technology is being deployed – whether it’s good or not.
Anyway.
Rough notes, again:
A Sense of Place, Erik Spiekermann
His company: design for places, people, environments.
Installed an espresso machine first at work, it’s a centre for the office.
Architects define the place by landmark buildings – gehryfication.
But cities have been designed by engineers and bureaucrats. Secondary and tertiary architecture – apocryphal, no-author.
Icons: yellow cabs / red buses / black cabs – mean you couldn’t be in any other city.
London – red bus, red phone box, red letter box. 1 icon has survived – the underground roundel.
Paris Metropolitan (art deco) sign – illegible, but gives us 100 years of Paris.
Designed the Berlin transport info system – couldn’t be in any historical style, as there were so many different ones in the existing infrastructure.
If a train/bus comes every 5-7 minutes, people don’t care how long it will be. 8-10 is bad. >10 they get angry.
When info graphics were applied to the transport system, everything became yellow. Totally changed the city.
“Univers is unsuited to signage systems.” – Paul Mijksenaar, designer of Schiphol info system
He’d say Frutiger was the right and only font for signs.
((he showed many airport sign systems – this page will approximate – in fact, I suspect some of his slides came from this))
Charles De Gaulle – turned from the black on yellow to yellow/white on black, as it was thought that signs were acting as lamps. Too bright.
Never use bold on signs. Let sign and type size do the work.
Copenhagen – their own typeface.
Portland – Futura. All wrong. An arrow pointing to the right has to be on the right.
Need arrows on every line / or use lozenges to group as at Heathrow.
Info systems can age – look tired, ancient.
Zurich – Akzidenz-Grotesk. White on black. The Swissest. But, too bold.
Dusseldorf – designed the info system, but lots of complaints. Went back to have a look: the architects had reduced the type size of the signs by 50% to make them look ‘better’.
He disagrees with Paul – not always the same font, everywhere. Fonts are also branding. There needs to be some grammar.
EU made a new font for LED signs (PDF here) – roadworks etc.
Now a new font for the entire EU road network. ((a page about the current European road typefaces, and a “discussion”, including Spiekermann, about transport typefaces))
Austrians introduced it – but had too long names, wanted ultra-compressed version. Created that, but used it everywhere, rather than just where needed.
Nokia – needed a typeface for tiny screens. Created bitmaps in 2000/2001. Now Monotype turned it into a font, now the brand of the company. Only paid 20k.
Y***o – a narrow mobile typeface. Never used. Clear that just changing the font created a branded interface.
Mobile city wayfinding, Tim Fendley
London has 27m new visitors a year. Looking for landmarks. Asking others to find their way.
Feelings on uncertainty stops us making trips.
Two modes: strider vs. stroller. Will switch between them depending on the circumstances.
Need seemlessness: journey planner / tube station / on the street / landmarks / road signs…
But they’re all run by different people.
2004: 32 different sign systems in London. (now 37)
from Legible London research report
Sign on South Bank – 3m up. Trying too hard.
44.5% of people use the Tube map to walk round London.
Very few long visits in London.
Aren’t the tower like in US to orient.
If the architecture is fundamentally legible, you don’t need many signs.
People will walk up to 12-15 minutes in London (less in smaller cities – 5 mins).
A five minute boundary plotted on a map.
People use the tube as safety.
Pockets of knowledge.
Paint the short gaps in between.
Anything that gives character can be used to navigate.
Place cells in hippocampus. Connect together as places in real life.
Nodes and paths. People normally go back the same way.
Experts start to skirt the busy streets.
They got people to draw mental maps.
We do connections, but not directions very well.
Areas / Villages / Neighbourhoods. Give names to these.
Wayfinding is a spatial art. Has to be in place/context.
Scored a number off maps for performance as walking tool:
A-Z 25%
Rough Guide 49%
Google Maps 25%
Legible London 92%
Tube map 12%
Width and character of streets. Added landmarks. Used 3d models where used for navigation.
Show shops and interesting areas.
Added a 15 minute walking map at a different zoom.
All maps are heads-up, not N-up.
Currently 19 signs. More for 2012 (2000?)
Not just signs: in tube stations, paper map to be given away in hotels.
New system in Brighton (Walk Brighton).
Guide books, A3 maps in hotels, online & downloadable.
Created special map for conference venues for Labour Party – overlaid.
Need enough of each map to relate / hand over to next map.
iPhone app coming – not available yet.
(EDIT: now available – iTunes link)
GPS is not accurate, worse in cities.
Shops are shown a different colour – indicates interestingness / areas to go to.
Nightlife view – changes shops for bars/clubs.
Questions
Different mental modes seen on the Internet – searching, browsing – how do these work in cities?
Search is the biggest benefit of going digital.
New tube map / river disappeared. Comments?
Tim: they tried to do the right thing. Didn’t go far enough: didn’t take off operational info/disability symbols.
There should be 30 different maps, depending on who you are and what you’re trying to do.
Erik: decisions are made for many reasons – some social. Anyway, it’s a diagram, not a map. That’s where there’s confusion.
Q about use of digital tools. Get rid of physical?
Erik: GPS means people lose the way. Lose the touch of the place. Dumbing factor.
Tim: Will still need physical, people use mixed media.
Erik: As long as there’s the same logic between.
70 million pounds to put Legible London throughout Zone 1. Far less than, say, escalators to fix the problem at Covent Garden.
Legible London links
Legible London / new maps and signs / background research / Bond Street prototype / 3 new prototype areas
Pics from a Legible London sign on Regent street:
A recording of the audio for this sign.
comments
I’m still reading through your article but just as a quick comment the WalkBrighton iPhone App is now available on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=325529959&mt=8
Thanks
— Matt Cooper 14.10.09 #
When I was in Newcastle recently the hotel was handing out a council approved walking map. Looked similar in design to the stuff up there.
Chris
I’ve been digesting your opening point about the lecture by Tim and Erik “the academic and design communities are twiddling their thumbs whilst the screen technology is being deployed”. I have to say i agree, and having worked on both Legible London and the WalkBrighton App and other city wayfinding projects in Vancouver and Dublin, from my perspective the issue is not that that the commercial design sector is avoiding the issue – more that clients are still catching up with the notion of what high quality public information actually entails.
We do find that there is a move towards real time information, and some places are doing it rather well, Zurich seems to be up there: http://onemillionsigns.com/2009/04/zurichs-on-tram-information/ but in general it’s enough of an effort to convince people that real time information isn’t the magic bullet for getting people useful and useable information. The basics of consistent codification of information, accurate data and above all stuff that builds knowledge, can be frustratingly difficult to get to.
The side of these projects which are never revealed in seminars and presentations is the huge data management and preparation which must go into even the simplest piece of information. With most projects of this kind being paid for by one-time capital budgets the challenge is always to set systems in place that can be maintained and managed over time. And digital on top of that, inevitably means more complication and more training for staff. Don’t get me started on interaction design.
It’s also often the case that the new screens going up in the public realm are being paid for by advertising contracts and so adverts take prime position. Justifying the business case for expensive technology to display public information can be a difficult one – especially when adverting contracts are relatively straightforward and easy to see immediate cost returns.
However, we should of course be pushing the boundaries of public information and new technology and embracing the new possibilities that it all entails. Maybe the marketing department will give us some space on those lovely plasma screens one day…
p.s. fascinated by your previous post ‘screens in context’. you have a new subscriber! (via Russell Davies).
— Matt Cooper 16.10.09 #