Signage: Navigating the cityscape with purpose and aesthetic

Architecture not only shapes the physical environment but also exerts a long lasting influence on the way we live.
Urban signage plays an important role in today’s world, being an effective directional, informational or marketing tool which defines the cityscape. It is an integral part of street furniture and cannot be treated in isolation. While for a megacity like Mumbai on its growth and expansion path this concept seems quite alien, taking its first baby steps with the many new infrastructural developments like flyovers, freeways, interchanges, metros, completed or in progress, countries around Europe, Singapore or Dubai follow strict signage codes which are part of urban legislations and Acts. These codes specify sizes, location and types of signage to be used for ensuring a degree of consistency and standards besides its aesthetic value, also considering and taking into account defacement to heritage buildings, monuments etc besides distraction to motorists and safety of pedestrians.
While there are many types of signages, which define the different elements of an urban city, it can broadly be categorized for both – outdoors and indoors under:
These are promotional or marketing signage, regulatory and warning signage, directional and informational signage and architectural signage.
Most signages in Mumbai lack the very essence of display for the purpose it is used due to its inappropriate scale of size of sign board, overlapping signs often obstructed, incorrect placement or wrong size of fonts of alphabets used often causing visibility concerns for both the pedestrians and motorists.
The marketing or promotional signage or advertising signage, which are represented in many forms due to an upsurge in consumerist culture in our cities and towns, has created different types of signage like free standing hoardings, pole displays, banners or simply sign boards of store front displayed on the facades of the building which require to maintain a regularity in size with relation to the road width, its projection on the sidewalk & architectural value of the vicinity. While it could be illuminated or simply printed/painted, a discipline is essential to maintain the character of the space.
On the other hand, outdoor regulatory and warning signage includes emergency evacuation signage, access/exit signs, traffic and road signs, parking signs, poor roads, no hawking zones, accidents, traffic laws, clearances for vehicles below flyovers, tunnels, speed limits, out-of-bound limits, potential dangers like high flood zone, visibility due to smog/fog, detours etc which could be permanent or of a temporary type.
The directional signage, a subset of informative signage which could be indicative to communicate to a person by way of graphics or symbols to give directions, location as a way finder to reach a person to his destination, be it outdoors on roads, highways or Indoors of public buildings such as museums, hospitals, malls, air terminals, rail and metro stations or public transportation with symbolic representations of emergency exits, elevators ,staircases, facilities for lesser abled or public utilities. The informative signage should include street names, heritage buildings in both regional and commonly used international language with house numbers, house or building name.
Whereas the architectural signage, which defines an urban city or town is an important aspect with its many landmarks, such as monuments, heritage buildings and precincts, eponymous roads, important avenues, chowks (public squares), parks, museums or public buildings, it often misses out on inclusions such as past street or landmark’s name, which are absent while being renamed or even a brief informative history of the place, monument to facilitate the visitor, the importance of the place. The High Court verdict some time back banning hoardings on heritage buildings and precincts is only a start to our society’s increasing sensitivity to a lack – luster approach and public apathy in the past
Though signages are predominantly meant as identification modes for different activities, there are lacunae in providing proper sign systems in our cities which are most often lacking or disregarded with hoardings, posters, bills, springing up left, right and centre on facades of buildings, open spaces, often in mismatch and assortment of sizes and location or disoriented, which only reflects on insensitivity & visual chaos they offer, notwithstanding that there are no strict regulations as far as the type of signage used with respect to the details such as size, height, the fonts, or the type of display for a particular activity or use. The importance of signage in different formats with human eye level view in context are pole signage , Pylon signage, suspended signage, Median signage, Bollard signage for outdoors as required and could be in fluorescent, neon, luminous, backlit or digital display.
A need for signage codes and its implementation of the same needs community support and awareness for a holistic approach which would bring about a meaningful interpretation.
(Moayyed Fatehi is a Mumbai-based architect, interior designer, author and ex-academician)