Ingredients
Signage
Wayfinding
Brand identity
Approach
We gave every room a letter and a word, set them big on black, and carried the same system out onto the street with sandwich boards and a hanging sign.
Method
Nobody should end up in the boiler room
The Yard moved into an old print works and kept its brick walls, steel stairs and long corridors. The building was beautiful. It was also very easy to get lost in.
The problem
Rooms went by nicknames only the founders understood, and the signs were office paper taped to doors.
The process
We walked the building with new members and wrote down every wrong turn.
A letter and a word. Every space gets one of each: A for the conference room, B for the library, C for the office.
Big on black. White type on black panels, readable from the far end of a corridor.
Out onto the street. The same signs, as sandwich boards and a hanging sign, bring people in from the pavement.
The result
New members now find the café on their first day, and the sandwich boards double as a noticeboard for events.
The founders say the boiler room has been very quiet.
“New members stopped knocking on the boiler room door looking for the café. That alone was worth it.”
Dev Patel, community manager at The Yard
Gallery
