Have you ever wondered why transit signage is so boring and, well, standardized?
Does it have to be that way? One thing transit should seek to do better is creativity, and signage presents a great opportunity.
Of course there is the essential required information to include in and around transit, as the National Association of City Transportation Officials notes. But almost every one of those requirements and recommendations could be nicely subverted by finding a new perspective rather than the business-as-usual operation of accepting whatever signs the state departments of transportation (DOTs) are offering.
One place where transit agencies can look for inspiration is unusual: the restaurant industry.
Restaurants – like transit – legally have to display certain information to customers, such as their health and safety rating, choking and first-aid guides, and no-smoking signs.
And also like transit, restaurants are mostly behind the curve. As this article notes: “Most people have generic pieces of paper in a frame hanging on a wall — they’re almost always generic, 99.9 percent of the time.”
Some restaurants, including the ones featured in the article from New York City, have better ideas.
When Sauvage was gearing up to open, the owners of the Greenpoint restaurant could have gotten required signage from the city for free.
But instead, they customized everything from the no-smoking sign to the choking first-aid poster, with hand-painted signs in brass frames or plaques that fit the 1960s French student revolution-inspired aesthetic of the two-year-old spot.
The article, by Newsday’s AM New York, makes the important point that, while the curated art can cost a lot of money (for finding and paying the right artists), it can also return plenty of revenue over time by selling signage to customers who have long had few options to purchase anything transit related.
Choking instructions at a restaurant in Brooklyn.
One restaurant partner is quoted in the article: “I’m very big on detail, so this is just part of the detail. They give you a little bit of an edge, while staying within the law.”
If 1950s-style cartoons about how to help choking victims goes a little too far as an initial attempt at creativity for transit agencies, perhaps a starting place is the nifty idea Greater Greater Washington contributor Todd Fisk had in 2016.
He showed how better design can start to give customers on Washington D.C.’s buses a clearer idea of where the heck they are along their journey.
There are obviously great design ideas to be found across so many industries – from TV to autos to perfumes to restaurants. Transit should learn from them if it wants to get serious about competing in a world of personal autos, Uber and Lyft, electric mobility devices, bicycling, and autonomous vehicles.
Be sure to check out more articles we have coming out next week on the history and psychology of transit signage fonts and an impressive transit signage campaign across one European country.
Main photo by The All-Night Images/Flickr.
The post Transit could learn how to do signage from restaurants appeared first on Mobility Lab.