The Tourist Signage System in lviv - Катя Романчик

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The Tourist Signage System in Lviv

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1 Who needs tourist signage?

2 What is the current situation?

3 What should a system for tourist signage be?

4 What does the Tourist Signage System comprise?

5 Typography and colour

6 Signs for street names and building numbers

7 Tourist site pictograms

8 Signs to tourist sites

9 City map

10 Information signposts

11 Road signs for tourists arriving by car or bus

12 Summary

13 Project authors

Contents

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Who needs tourist signage? What is the current situation?

They need in-depth and easily accessible information about sites and events in the city.

They arrive in the city by train, bus, or car, often in small groups. Lviv may be their final destination, or a stop on their way elsewhere. They need a thorough source of information about the city.

These groups require more in-depth information about tourist sites, services, shops, etc.

Graphic design and typeface selections are unprofessional and incompatible with the environment, with which they relate. Written texts are not translated and not transliterated.

Modern plastic signs that are il-luminated are not reliable, as some of them become damaged almost immediately after installation.

Tourist maps of the city are mostly illegible because of an overload of cluttered and often outdated information.

Until recently, there has never been a comprehensive signage system, either in Lviv or in Ukraine in general. Existing signs (tourist maps, identifying or orientation signs) are installed chaotically, randomly, without reference to any kind of strategy for orientating a person

within a given environment, and without analysis of his or her informational needs. The navigational media that do exist in the city do not conform to requirements of legibility, accessibility, or reliability; they are not informative or aesthetically pleasing.

Permanent and temporary inhabitants of Lviv

Organized domestic groups

Organized foreign tourist groups

Individual domestic tourists

Individual foreign tourists This group requires a great deal of information about everything to do with staying in the city: hotels, dining, tourist attractions, getting around the city. As a rule, they do not speak Ukrainian and find it difficult communicating with the local population and making their way through the city.

They are interested in swift and thorough visits to tourist attractions. They need information about the location of tourist sites and service spots and how to get to them as quickly as possible. They also prefer to plan their routes independently.

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What should a system for tourist signage be?

Transliterated texts Legible Friendly to the urban environment

Long-lasting Cost-effectiveCompatible with world signage standards

Elements of the Tourist Signage System should be weather resistant, especially in conditions of fluctuations in temperature or high humidity; they should be easy to clean and maintain, and be sturdy and resistant to acts of vandalism.

Signs should be inexpensive to produce in small quantities.

According to statistical research con-ducted by the Tourism Information Centre, the proportion of domestic tourists to foreign tourists is 60 to 30 percent. The biggest problem faced by foreign visitors to Lviv is their inability to read the Cyrillic alphabet. It is, therefore, imperative that a system of transliteration be introduced into the development of signage for tourists in the city.

Signs should be easily and quickly legible to drivers, cyclists, people with sight impairment, people in wheelchairs, in cloudy weather, at dusk, and during dark periods of the day.

The rich and varied architectural environment of Lviv is its most pre-cious and important asset, attract-ing tourists from all over the world to the city. This is precisely why a system for tourist signage should not dominate nor be dissonant with it. All of the elements of a tourist signage system should, on the one hand, be friendly to the environment, but on the other, able to compete with other signs and advertisements that are situated on building facades and themselves interfere with the historical environment.

All elements of the tourist signage system, in particular pictogram sys-tems, colour schemes, translation and transliteration into foreign languages should relate to world standards for signage to enable foreign tourists to easily understand them.

Wayfinding signs should first and foremost be functional elements of the city environment and they should relay precisely the information a person needs at precisely the moment a person needs it

Understandable Compatible Sustainable

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What does the Tourist Signage System comprise?Street nameplates and numbers Pictograms of tourist objects

Identification signsDirectional signsOrientational signs

Pedestrian signposts

City maps Information pylons Road signs for car tourists

They are placed at sites and let a person know that they have reached their destination. They inform about what the site is. These are street signs and signs near the entrance to a building.

They are placed at a distance from sites, as a rule, at decision-making points. They inform an individual about directions, and provide an opportunity for independent choice. They contain arrows, site names, and pictograms.

Maps and plans located at cross-roads. They help a person find the way and plan a route.

decision point

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Typography and colours

As the street plate should fit in with architectural environment of Lviv city, therefore, the typeface used should consider the typefaces of the end of XIX — beginning of XX century. During that

In order to succeed maximum legibility it is important to achieve the contrast between the background and the typeface. However, the streets of Lviv city are overloaded with bright advertising; the street plates should not be dissonant, but to the contrary, fit into environment. It was decided to use as background colour the dominating environment colour (intense dark brown), that at the same time correspond with European norms for tourist signage.

and later times there were a lot of advertising on buildings, and based on those typefaces there was created modern legible typeface to be used in the city wayfinding system.

We have developed the figures for modern plates based on beautiful figures designed before the 2 World War, which some of them have been preserved on building plates.

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Street plates with names and numbers

The typeface remains legible in the twilights and readable for people with poor sight

Latin letters designed in the way that transliteration is legible despite of smaller font size

City coat of arms has been modified for better recognition from the distance

White typeface on dark background remains legible even in twilights. Enamel covering is strong and long-lasting

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Pictograms of tourist objects

As most of tourist attraction objects in Lviv have unique and recognizable silhouettes, there has been developed the whole system of pictograms for their atching. It helps tourists a lot in their wayfinding in the city. The object placed in the pictogram was simplified to maximum, but remains recognizable. Pictograms are well perceived in all system elements — informational signposts, city maps, etc. The object depicted in pictogram can be suc-cessfully identified even when the pictogram is dimin-ished by 8 mm in diameter.

Pictograms of public transport and objects of service

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Signposts

Signpost’s look is based on the same composition principles as street plates. Despite the sign’s fixed size, both Ukrainian and English typeface, the object pictogram and destination arrow can be placed on it.

The pillar consists of the base, decorative links, the top and frames to which the fingerpost’s plate is fixed. One pillar may carry up to 12 signposts if necessary.

The signposts are not dissonant to architec-tural environment due to colour and con-structive solution, but at the same time they remain visible and the typefaces are accu-rate and legible

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City map

ІсторичниймузейHistorical Museum

Музей меблівта порцеляниMuseum of Furniture

and China

Музей склаGlass Museum

Музей поштиPost office museum

Музей історії релігіїMuseum of Religion

History

Галерея «Дзига»Dzyga Gallery

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Церква пресв. Євхаристії(Домініканський костел)St. Eucharist Church (Dominican Church)

КоролівськийарсеналRoyal Arsenal

Успенська церкваAssumption Church

Синагога«Золота Роза»Golden Rose Synagogue

Музей зброїArmoury Museum

Порохова вежа

Gunpowder Tower

Аптека-музейPharmacy Museum

Комунальна першаміська поліклінікаFirst aid station

universalany general or more specific information can be placed on it;

scalablecan be reproduced at different scales, from large information pylons to the small tourist guides;

legiblethe map remains understandable in big and small scales.

All texts on the map have been transliterated or translated into English

Most of architectural monuments are situated in the small central part of the city. There are also many museums, theatres and other tourist attractions, which makes it difficult to place all of them on the map. A detailed background and basic

principles for placing objects of tourist interest has been developed. For tourist wayfinding system a special map with following features was designed:



and China




History


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Gunpowder Tower





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Gunpowder Tower





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Gunpowder Tower



and also pavement, pedestrian crossings, steps, street names, building numbers, parks, directions to the railway station and bus station, and international highways numbers.

Graphic and colour map solution helps quickly identify necessary group of objects:

Key points of tourist interest Museums, theatres and other tourist attractions

Public transport network, emergency and public services

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Road signs for car touristsInformation pylons

For tourists who travel by car, a series of road signs to the objects of tourist interest has been developed. Tak-ing into account the fact that most of these objects are situated in the central part of the city, there is no need to display all of them on the signs. To show the direction to the city centre would be enough. Apart from the city centre, the road signs show the car tourists the way to St. George’s Cathedral, Lychakiv cemetery and Folk Ar-chitectre Museum. Road signs have been developed ac-cording to the «Road Signs» State Standard 4100–2002. However there is also a place for few innovations, in particular a brown background and text with pictograms.

Most tourist attractions are concenrated in the small central part of the city. In order to provide more information on the objects special two-sided pylons with the indication of location and directions to key destinations have been developed.

Собор св. ЮраSt. George Cathedral

Львівський університетLviv University

Залізничний вокзалCentral Railway station

Львівська політехнікаLviv Polytechnic University

Органний зал Organ Hall

пл. генерала Григоренкаpl. henerala Hryhorenka

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Design, art-directionPetro Nahirnyy

Typeface designYuriy Krukevych

Map designMykhailo Tsaryk

Pictograms designСашко Топольницький

Project authors

Project supervisor — Vasyl Kosiv, Head of Graphic Design Department, Lviv National Arts Academy project coordinator — Olga Plesak, project assistant — Oksana Yablonska, The authors are grateful for support and assistance to Oleksiy Poburko, Natalia Petryk, Olena Holysheva, Nadiya Lutsiv and Katherina Stelmakh, Mykhailo Titarenko, Yuriy Kutnyy, Oleksandr Novitskyy, Graphic Design Department of Lviv National Arts Academy, and also everyone who has been involved in project creation and implementation.

Within the framework of the project aimed at develop-ing an infrastructure for tourist information in Lviv, the following measures were implemented for the first time in Ukraine:

• A comprehensive and well-reasoned system for tourist signage in the city. The planning of the tourist signage system by its very nature took into account a number of disciplines: urban planning, architecture, history, graphic design, design of elements within the urban landscape, information design, and tourism. A methodology was developed for the planning of a system for information and orientation; the best ways of visualizing information were determined on the basis of tourist needs and were consistent throughout all types of informational signs.

• A completely unique and independent graphic de-sign solution. All elements within the system (typeface, maps, pictograms, etc.) were designed exclusively for the Tourist Signage System of Lviv. No elements were borrowed from third parties or organizations in order to avoid any possible copyright infringement. All rights to use design elements are reserved for the Lviv City Council.

• A universal, legible vector map of the city. The pre-vailing problem of existing city maps and topographic plans is their illegibility, which is caused by the clutter of too much various information. For the first time in Ukraine a city map has been developed on the basis on

information design. All information included in the map is well-structured and visualized; this method enables the introduction of a great deal of information, includ-ing transliteration of all place names and other text, while at the same time preserving legibility. The city map covers the historical city centre; its buildings and blocks are depicted using satellite imagery. The vector-based map allows reproduction in any scale and has two levels of detail.

• A pictogram scheme for points of interest, tourist sites. Forty pictograms were designed for the rapid identification of leading points of interest. Their most important characteristic is the fact that they are recognizable both at great distances (which allows their depiction on signs) and also at a minimal size of 8 mm in diameter (necessary for pocket city maps or guidebooks).

• A series of road signs with directions to points of interest. During the course of the project two unique typefaces were developed containing Latin, Cyrillic, and Eastern European alphabets. Also developed were: 2 city maps, 60 pictograms, 4 thematic maps in two scales; 4 sign types including their construction design; instal-lation design of all system elements; 20 prototypes and test samples; 170 signs with street names and 400 signposts to points of interest.

This work was implemented over the course of 2 years.

Summary

© Lviv City Council, 2010 р.

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Lviv, 1 Rynok sq,Tourist information center

Phone: +38 (0322) 54 60 79e-mail: [email protected] www.touristinfo.lviv.ua

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The Tourist Signage System in lviv - Катя Романчик