The award-winning V&A Wayfinding assignment was one of the most rewarding projects we have completed in recent years.
There were so many factors to be considered, not least the need to cause minimal disruption so that visitors and private events (which are the museums life blood) could continue. Most of the works were therefore carried out overnight and over several weeks. We worked closely with the museum’s estates team to ensure we could get the signs from one location to another and with limited storage space available on-site, staged deliveries were needed. Fixing into the walls and ceilings of one of London’s most iconic listed buildings is not for the faint hearted either, with extensive testing and sampling taking place before installation. There are over 400 signs in all, ranging from totem signs clad in black tulip wood, to projecting, wall mounted facilities signs, maps and hanging gallery signs. Each sign was fabricated by hand, with direct to media print being applied for the graphic elements, giving a durable, unbelievably sharp finish. The signage and wayfinding scheme won the coveted SEDG (Society for Experiential Graphic Design) ‘HONORS AWARD’ in 2020. Furthermore, the V&A undertakes continual visitor surveys and the results speak for themselves:
74 percent of visitors said that they found navigating easy or very easy, compared to 58 percent in the same period the prior year. The proportion of visitors answering “difficult” or “other” fell from 18 percent to just 3 percent.
(Source V&A)
