Adaptable wayfinding graphics strengthen brand
You are sadly mistaken and far behind the times if you still think a sign is nothing more than a message printed on sheet metal. These days, signs are metaphorically malleable. They’re changeable. Their messages can be adjusted based on ever-shifting needs. Case in point: the graphics created by Aion Solutions, an Indiana-based branding company, for The Art Institutes, a system of 50 North American schools of higher education.
From Aion Solutions.
The Art Institutes needed signs that would communicate information about the varying locations of events as well as the brand as a whole. A press release on the project throws around techie phrases like “magnetic receptive print materials,” “layerable signage,” and “high-impact wayfinding graphics.” But what’s important here is that staff can use Aion’s solution to easily change the new signs to direct visitors to different locations. Visitors can understand the signs well enough to find their way to events, and the signs retain their professional polish in each and every situation.
In sum, these new high-tech signs do everything old-fashioned, traditional signs can do—and more. And isn’t this what modern technology is really supposed to be all about? Adding to the capabilities and possibilities that already exist?
Too often, technology seems to complicate matters, perhaps unnecessarily. The harnessing of electricity allowed us to see in the dark. Great, except now there’s no good reason to quit working and go to bed. Television brought us new forms of entertainment and news from around the globe. Wonderful! If you overlook the way it also forever changed the way families interact—or don’t anymore. Computers, cell phones, and the internet made it possible to escape the office and work from home. Fabulous… aside from the fact that it’s really never possible to escape the office when the office can reach you any time, any place. In the age of virtual reality, true vacations are virtually obsolete.
And does anyone remember life before user names, passwords and highly secret numbers (Social Security, bank account, etc.) could give anyone access to your most personal information? Was identity theft even a “thing” one hundred years ago?
Technology at its best makes the world less confusing and more accessible. It delivers clear messages. When technology simplifies life it accomplishes everything we claim we wanted it for in the first place. It proves its worth, perhaps even to dedicated Luddites.