There are sev­eral books about sig­nage sys­tems and envi­ron­men­tal graphic design avail­able. Andreas Uebele wrote the book Sig­nage sys­tems & Infor­ma­tion graph­ics and this is one of the best and most exten­sive books about sig­nage avail­able. I enjoyed read­ing and tak­ing a detailed look at the projects spo­ken in this pro­fes­sional source book and with most of the described sig­nage projects are a spe­cific details by the design­ers. A truly great sig­nage book, a total must have.

Sig­nage sys­tems & Infor­ma­tion Graphics

The 336 count­ing pages book has a hard cover and is 28,5 x 24 cm. The pages read well and quickly you can find what you are look­ing for by the index. The text lay­out and choose of typog­ra­phy fits well and reads great, designed in a grid way (sim­i­lar to how sig­nage is designed). Andreas Uebele is a well known designer with the design iden­tity agency in Ger­many “Büro Uebele”. They have man­aged to design many sig­nage & infor­ma­tion graph­ics projects in the last years, from air­ports, offices, library and more. The author describes the fol­low­ing ele­ments of sig­nage design:

• Sig­nage design, typog­ra­phy and how to choose a typeface
• Pro­duc­tion, plan­ning and sign management
• Projects from sign designs from all over the world
• Exten­sive draw­ings and pho­tos from sign projects

Typog­ra­phy & Signage

A key fac­tor in sig­nage design & infor­ma­tion graph­ics is the choose of typog­ra­phy, with the choose of type­face you are able to make or break a design and its func­tion­al­ity. In the book is explained how to choose a type­face and what char­ac­ter­is­tics a cer­tain type­face needs to have in order to be used in sig­nage sys­tems. Andreas Uebele men­tions dif­fer­ent type­faces that they used in projects and explains the dif­fer­ences between the men­tioned type­faces. A good intro­duc­tion into choos­ing a type­face for sig­nage & infor­ma­tion graph­ics. Fur­ther on in the intro­duc­tion the book goes deeper into design­ing for sig­nage and which meth­ods to use in order to achieve an effec­tive sig­nage & wayfind­ing sys­tem. With var­i­ous exam­ples and draw­ings you quickly read how and what to design.

Sign Design

The book explains how to use proper color sys­tems and how to place them into a envi­ron­ment to cre­ate a good work­ing sig­nage sys­tem. The author explains why they have cho­sen the color com­bi­na­tion, typog­ra­phy and size of the air­port sig­nage project described in the book. A great insight in learn­ing more about sig­nage design. Fur­ther on there are more projects described and explained with exten­sive photo mate­r­ial and the actual pro­duc­tion draw­ings. By the draw­ings you can get a good view of how the sig­nage sys­tems are designed and produced.

Sig­nage projects from other designers

In the book are also described many other projects from dif­fer­ent design­ers and design agen­cies than Buro Uebele, for instance Schiphol designed by Bureau Mijk­se­naar. There are var­i­ous images and con­cept draw­ings aswel as the detailed infor­ma­tion about typog­ra­phy, color use and more. By adding more infor­ma­tion from other design­ers makes this book a must have ref­er­ence guide into graphic design and sig­nage sys­tems. You get a clear insight of sig­nage projects which con­trol peo­ple in var­i­ous fields of visual com­mu­ni­ca­tion and show­ing them the way.

Avail­abil­ity of Sig­nage sys­tems & infor­ma­tion graphics

This exten­sive sig­nage graph­ics book is avail­able from var­i­ous resources, see the links below.

• Hard­cover: 336 pages
• Pub­lisher: Thames & Hud­son (Octo­ber 29, 2007)
• Lan­guage: English
• ISBN-10: 0500513791 and ISBN-13: 978–0500513798
• Buy from Ama­zon, Thames Hud­sen and visit the cor­po­rate web­site from Büro Uebele.
• Avail­able from around $65,-