Scope
Brand
Content
About
Stanford asked us to look at how people find their way through the campus. It is a place people arrive at once and remember for the rest of their lives, and the wayfinding had to work for both the visitor and the person who has walked it for years.
Wayfinding
We started by walking it. The arches, the quads and the long covered walks already tell you where you are, so the job was not to add information everywhere but to place it where the architecture stops helping, which turned out to be far fewer points than expected.
System
Signs were sorted into four jobs: confirm where you are, name what you are looking at, point onward, and warn. Each job has one format and one position, so a visitor learns the system once at the edge of campus and reads it everywhere after that.
Signage
The material palette answers the buildings rather than competing with them. Sandstone-toned faces, a single accent for direction, and type set large enough to read at walking pace from the far side of a quad.
Craft
We tested the type outdoors before committing. Letterforms were spaced for the strong California light and for the long shadows under the arcades, where a sign spends much of the day half in shade.
End
The result is a system that recedes into the campus rather than being installed on top of it, and only speaks up where you need it.
Credits