Airport signs & wayfind­ing sys­tems are guides to show vis­i­tors the way. From find­ing the toi­lets, gates, tran­f­sers or even the cof­fee cor­ner, signs are needed to show the way. Air­port sig­nage design is not a easy task and cre­at­ing a wayfind­ing sys­tem in a air­port which will have to guide thou­sands of vis­i­tors takes a in-dept case study of the visual envi­ron­ment, trav­ellers stream, detailed prints of the build­ing and much more. In this photo show­case I’ve col­lected images of Air­port Sig­nage from cities all over the world, using the photo web­site flickr.

Düs­sel­dorf Air­port Signs

Photo credit iwouldstay

Air­port Sig­nage Design

When design­ing sig­nage for a Air­port or a other pub­lic build­ing you have to take a good notice of the visual sur­round­ings the sig­nage will be placed in. The back­gound col­ors of walls and win­dows, the amount day­light let in the build­ing, the light­ing and more envi­ron­men­tal ele­ments are impor­tant when design­ing sig­nage for a aiport. In a visual crowed envi­ron­ment it is impor­tant that sig­nage design stands out to its back­ground, for a max­i­mum effect. Use a color sys­tem with not to many vari­a­tions and be con­sis­tant with the color usage. Think about using illum­nated signs to enhanche the read­abil­ity of the sig­nage and always use mock­ups of the signs to test if the sig­nage is work­ing in the visual surroundings.

Color, typog­ra­phy design and use of pictograms

Design high con­trast signs to ensure good read­abil­ity and leg­i­bilty of the sig­nage. Col­ors that work well are a dark back­ground with a light col­ored text and pic­tograms. For exam­ple a black back­ground with white illu­mi­nated let­ter­ing will ensure a high con­trast which has a good read­abil­ity from a dis­tance. Other com­men color com­bi­na­tions are a yel­low back­ground with black let­ter­ing. For typog­ra­phy use a sans type like FF Info by Erik Spiek­er­mann or Frutiger by Adrian Frutiger. Use a font that have a high x-height which will increase the leg­i­bil­ity of the signs. Use only one font in all visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion lev­els of the air­port sig­nage. For inter­na­tional air­ports it is vital to use sym­bols to indi­cate the facil­i­ties in and around the air­port, always strengthen the sym­bol with writ­ten text in the native lan­guage and per­forably in Eng­lish lan­guage. This will ensure that most of the vis­i­tors can read the signs.

Photo credit sabri­nak

Type­face FF Info

Designed by Erik Spiek­er­mann and Ole Schäfer, FF Info Col­lec­tion offers a large vari­ety in type weights and pic­togram sets with a good leg­i­b­lity suit­able for air­port signs.

Arrow design

Arrows are one of the most impor­tant design fea­tures of a wayfind­ing sys­tem for air­ports, with a point­ing arrow you will be able to guide vis­i­tors to their des­ti­na­tion. Choos­ing a arrow within a design can make or break the design, don’t over due the arrow but gen­tly incor­po­rate the arrow into the sign in bal­ance with type. Recently I’ve released a arrow col­lec­tion to use in a design. Down­load the 56 free arrows as a Illus­tra­tor vec­tor file here.

Sign design using a grid

Always use a grid to design Sig­nage & wayfind­ing sys­tems in order to main­tain bal­ance and flex­i­bil­ity in the design. In a future arti­cle I will go in dept by explain­ing how to design sig­nage using a grid.

Inspi­ra­tion: Per­sonal favourites

Below you will find a show­case of my per­sonal 5 favourite air­port sig­nage designs. High con­trast illu­mi­nated signs, using clear lettering.

Seat­tle Air­port Signage

Sin­ga­pore Ter­mi­nal 3 air­port signage

Copen­hagen air­port signage

Schiphol Ams­ter­dam, Signage

Photo Cour­tesy: Mar­tijn van Exel, visit his web­site Schaal­treinen.

Mel­bourne Aus­tralia, Air­port Signage

Port­land Inter­na­tional Air­port Signage

More Air­port Signs Inspiration

Below a show­case of 19 more pho­tos of air­port sig­nage design.

Frank­furt Inter­na­tional Airport

Munich Air­port Signage

Zürich air­port signage

War­saw Air­port Signage

Sin­ga­pore air­port signage

Ataturk Air­port — Inter­na­tional Terminal

Oporto’s new air­port signage

Zürich basic signage

Berlin, Schöne­feld Air­port signage

Newark Inter­na­tional Airport

Paris — CDG Air­port Ter­mi­nal 2 Signage

Malaysia’s KLIA airport

Madrid Air­port Signage

Doha, Qatar

Thai air­port signage

Dubai air­port signage

Oax­aca City Airport

Incheon Inter­na­tional Airport

Ben­galuru Inter­na­tional Air­port Signage

Other infor­ma­tion & related resources

Bureau Mijk­se­naar has been proven to be a world leader in air­port sig­nage design, Paul Mijk­se­naar has designed air­port signs for John F. Kennedy, Newark and LaGuardia, Sardinia’s Italy and Schiphol. His designs can be marked as clear high con­trast signs. At Mijk­se­naars web­site you can find more detailed infor­ma­tion about these projects.

• Per­sonal tips and infor­ma­tion about air­port sig­nage design by Paul Mijksenaar
• A case study by Jenny Reis­ing at Sign­web about Schiphol Air­port sig­nage.
• MetaDe­sign cre­ated the sig­nage sys­tem for Dus­sel­dorf Aiport, in this detailed PDF you can find var­i­ous infor­ma­tion about the design.
• A case study in com­par­ing type­faces for air­port signs by Robert Waller. This study com­bined three research method­olo­gies to inform the choice of a type­face for signs at London’s Heathrow Air­port, see this web­site for more infor­ma­tion.
• FF Info by avail­able via FontShop.

Com­ming up

Next arti­cle will be a design tuto­r­ial how to design air­port sig­nage, stay updated for more free design arti­cles, sub­scribe to the RSS feed.

Share your thoughts

I’m curi­ous to know which of the above men­tioned air­port sig­nage designs you like the best? Please leave a com­ment in the com­ment fields below. Thank you!