While the majority of contributors to this article are vendors, Corbin’s point of view on design and integration of these elements into the bigger picture is critical to understanding the role of digital signage elements for healthcare facilities.

In fact, with our clients, we stress that healthcare facilities should be in the business of providing better content, not in purchasing expensive digital infrastructure which is often quickly outdated. Now more than ever, the tools that will allow users to create their own journey to a healthcare facility are in the hands of consumers; it’s the institution’s job to assure that proper information is given at all points of decision, whether before, during or after the visit is complete.

Excerpts from the article:

Most experts agree that integrating digital and conventional signage requires careful planning. Mark VanderKlipp, president, Corbin Design (www.corbindesign.com), Traverse City, Mich., offers the following suggestions to facilitate the design process:

Use consistent terminology. Make sure that every tool used for wayfinding consistently speaks to the visitor regardless of its format.

Use materials that match other wayfinding information in the hospital. By doing that, facility professionals create a pattern of elements that people learn to access for information. Use of color, typography and accents such as wood or aluminum should keep the wayfinding system visually consistent.

Update content on a regular basis. A team should meet regularly to keep electronic signage updated, by creating content based on patient needs and projecting a positive message as part of the hospital’s brand.

“Interactive elements provide almost limitless opportunities to put information in the public realm,” Vander Klipp says. “This information can become visual noise if not managed properly.”

Link to the article here.

Overview: Regional Wayfinding
What is wayfinding? We define it simply as “direction for people in motion.” It’s a system of designed communications that use consistent terminology to direct visitors to the diversity of a region’s destinations, events and attractions. As a reflection of regional culture, a wayfinding system becomes a system of recognizable tools that fit within the context of local language, streetscapes and activities. A wayfinding program directs a visitor’s experience; it does not define it. We leave that job to each unique community.

Why develop a project like this?
As one of our clients said, “Wayfinding is about economic development. Period.” Regions are realizing that a shared approach to attracting business, resident and tourist dollars will be a net benefit. Overcoming competitive obstacles is always a difficult part of the process, since towns and destinations may have been competing for the same tourist dollars, sometimes for generations. It is important to shift thinking to the old adage that “a rising tide lifts all boats”: if more visitors are drawn to the region, everyone will profit. This can be a significant cultural hurdle, one that must be overcome by all stakeholders at the beginning of the process.
A consolidated approach to wayfinding unifies a region both verbally and visually, and gives visitors the tools they need to navigate successfully. Most importantly, the information provided to a visitor can make them feel like an “insider:” if they feel competent and confident, they are able to discover unique events, attractions and destinations on their own. When they do this, they’re much more likely to share this positive experience with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors. At the same time, wayfinding can build awareness among residents to all that their region has to offer – tools used in wayfinding programs are not only intended for visitors from far away! In most instances, local and regional visitors (within 30-50 miles) are the primary audiences for wayfinding.
What does a wayfinding system include?
It’s important to note that wayfinding is a communication challenge as much as it is a signage task. Certainly signage plays a significant role, but there are many potential ways to reach a visitor prior to their arrival with relevant, reassuring messages. Verbally, each of these must be speaking in the same way. Visually, use of a similar graphic approach to mapping and the presentation of information will build familiarity with the program and make wayfinding tools recognizable, whether online, in a mobile device or on a sign.
Who typically runs the project?
In our experience, a regional Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), a consortium of Chambers of Commerce or other economic development agencies are part of the process. A single project champion is critical: one that is well connected within the region and can move the process forward, both politically and financially. While an outside firm can help organize and manage the process of design and implementation, there is no substitute for a strong internal advocate.
Where does funding typically originate?
For most regional wayfinding programs, the analysis and design phases are funded by a single organization that helps shepherd the process and provides crucial review and approvals. The true creativity begins as the project moves into implementation phases: paying for a wayfinding system rollout can be complex and expensive. From detailed pay-to-play formulas to Department of Transportation grants, tax-funded approaches and other ideas, we’ve helped our clients discover ways to fund programs that make the design a reality.
What steps are required?

1. Engage in research to define the region: What is it? What does it include? What makes it unique from other regions? Why should people come?
2. Establish an internal project champion to guide the process (person or organization)
3. Align communities around common goals: outreach, awareness building
4. Design a unifying brand, shared language: common terminology
5. Solicit support from a variety of constituents, and continually communicate progress to all stakeholders and the general public. Involve regulatory agencies at the outset.
6. Use existing assets, such as DOT signage, for consistency and savings
7. Design flexible, sustainable systems: signage, print and electronic
8. Throughout the process, design and build an equitable funding mechanism

Anticipated outcomes

1. One consistent brand for the region, within which all communities, events and destinations communicate their unique attributes
2. An intuitive set of tools for wayfinding, providing connections within and between communities and destinations
3. Improved competitive position relative to other regions
4. Increased confidence among visitors and regional residents who explore, discover and tell stories about their experiences.
5. Deeper loyalty among visitors and an increase in return visits
6. Increased “cross-pollination” among communities, events, destinations
7. Better tools for economic development

This is the third in a series of interviews with Colin Ellard, author of “You Are Here – Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost at the Mall.” When the book came out in 2009, we first read it cover to cover, then sent an email to Colin to ask more specific questions about wayfinding in general. We hope you enjoy these excerpts from our interview.

Corbin:
We know that different environments call for different types of wayfinding, given the typical visitor’s need. What research do you have that speaks to a vistor’s state of mind, and thus their ability to accept wayfinding information?

We all know that our emotional state has a huge influence on our ability to navigate.

Ellard:
This is an area that interests me greatly and that we’re just getting started with. We all know that our emotional state has a huge influence on our ability to navigate (as design professionals, you know this better than anyone). We call this a “positive feedback loop;” as we become more anxious, our wayfinding skills deteriorate further still. This is compounded by the fact that there is huge variability in natural wayfinding abilities, and we know that people who are weak navigators are more likely to become anxious.

In certain environments we’re going to be anxious anyway:

• In a hospital, very few visitors are in a happy or relaxed state of mind
• In an airport, we’re typically worried about security checks, finding the right gate and staying on schedule
• In an unfamiliar city, security might be an additional concern

We know all of these things at an intuitive level, but what we don’t know yet is how different affective states might influence wayfinding abilities. Does anxiety make it less likely that you’ll notice landmarks? That you’ll lose track of how far you’ve walked? Does it make you less able to interpret a “You Are Here” map? Maybe all of these things, but maybe some more than others. These are critical things for an environmental graphic designer to know, and we can find answers to those kinds of questions with the tools we’re using in my lab.

Corbin:
We know there is wide variety among humans in their ability to navigate. How does one design for the mean, rather than the exception? And how do we determine that mean?

Ellard:
We’re just beginning to look at variability in navigational skills among average urban populations. The first step is to get some numbers to measure that variability; the next is to see what its constituents might be. There’s already some evidence that different individuals might be better or worse at using particular kinds of wayfinding tools.

For instance, if a person does well with landmarks, they will thrive in a complex setting that is brimming with easily distinguishable features. But that same person might fail in a more sparse environment where it’s necessary to develop an understanding of the geometry to navigate. Conversely, if a person is the kind of navigator who relies more on geometry, then a cluttered environment with lots of features might serve as a distraction. So I think a part of the answer to your question hinges on our understanding of where that variability comes from.

Corbin:
Many people assume that we’re losing the ability to navigate because of the “crutches” we’ve created. In the future, is this ability something we can rebuild as a society, or do we as designers just need to be more thoughtful – and more aware – to compensate for these deficiencies?

Did you know that there's a difference between true north and magnetic north?

Ellard:
I’ve been asked about this a lot. There is at least one brain scientist who argues that GPS is the worst thing to have happened to the human brain since mercury. Well maybe that overstates it a bit, but there’s this idea that we are building more and more supportive environments and so we’re freeing people from the need to look after themselves, to know their place and understand their way as the ancients did.

I think there’s probably some truth to this. I respond by noting that we can think of many clever ways to subvert that kind of technology to our own ends if we want to. We design location-based games – geocaching for example – that might actually help people better navigate space. How many people knew that there was a difference between true north and magnetic north until the iPhone compass offered them a choice between the two? That’s one very simple example. Editor’s note: here’s how you find true north.

I’m not sure how relevant this is to environmental graphic designers, however. I suppose an argument might be that sometimes you should mess with people — get them lost on purpose just to encourage them to figure it out.  Maybe there’s a place for that, but certainly not in an airport or a hospital

Corbin:
So what’s next for you and your research team?

Ellard:
I think we’re really going to be pushing hard at our evidence-based design agenda: we want to get immersive visualizations of proposed buildings into the design loop in an entirely new way.  As I see it, the biggest challenge will be to define the limits of how well behaviour in virtual reality can predict behaviour in real world settings.

We have one project underway now where we’re measuring the behaviour of users of a real space (a student centre in Toronto) and then we’ll follow up with measurements of behaviour of users of a virtual rendering of the same building.  It’s ambitious, but I think if we can map out the similarities and differences between the two, and we can develop a nice, fine-grained portrait of what happens in both types of spaces using both traditional psychological tools and souped up physiological ones, we’ll have proof of principle for an incredibly powerful new approach to design.

I know. That sounds a bit like a grant application!

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Colin Ellard is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He has been conducting research and writing about the psychology of spatial perception for the last 25 years. Check out Colin’s blog here.

This is the second in a series of interviews with Colin Ellard, author of “You Are Here – Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost at the Mall.” When the book came out in 2009, we first read it cover to cover, then sent an email to Colin to ask more specific questions about wayfinding in general. We hope you enjoy these excerpts from our interview.

Corbin:
In your book you mention that, as humans, there is a cognitive gap between what we think we can accomplish and what we actually can accomplish in an environment. Typically during that span of time, the things we do to solve the problem can further disorient us. Our rule of thumb is that people prefer reinforcement every 300 ft. walking, and every 600 ft. driving in an exterior environment. Can you comment?

Sometimes our best efforts to orient ourselves can result in greater confusion.

Ellard:
What you’re describing is certainly a problem for human beings exploring natural environments. There are all kinds of examples: Polar explorers mistakenly thinking they could keep their bearings and walk in a straight line without instruments; people staggering off a trail in the woods and dying of exposure, etc. Of course things are very different in built settings where we can become convinced that we’re better at maintaining orientation than we actually are, at least in part because of the skills of Environmental Graphic Designers in producing supportive environments.

As to your rule of thumb, the first thing I notice is that it scales differently for speed. With an average walking speed of 3 miles/hr, your 300 ft rule translates into roughly one reinforcement per minute. But your driving rule (if my rough and ready math is right) amounts to one reinforcement every 10 seconds, assuming urban driving at around 40mph. Editors note: we base typical road speeds in urban environments on 25-35mph, though we compensate for the reality that people exceed posted speeds.

That’s a big difference, but you can account for it because when driving, much of your cognition is engaged in things like collision avoidance, so you have fewer resources to devote to tracking location. Also, walkers are much more nimble and flexible when it comes to things like scanning, backtracking, pausing, etc. all of which helps them successfully navigate.

Corbin:
In our projects we find that, regardless of age, people tend not to look up for information. Why is this?

Ellard:
The answers might lie in our evolutionary heritage. Unless you’re the kind of critter that is preyed upon from the overhead (think of mice and birds of prey) then the upper part of visual space tends not to be as closely scrutinized as the lower field. The other thing that occurs to me (and this is wild speculation on my part so meant to be taken with a grain of salt) is that some studies show that our lower visual fields are specialized for visuomotor control. Think of brain activities that need to control our interactions with things that we see: from stepping over obstacles to reaching out to grab things.

The upper visual field tends to be more involved in processing far distance information, but even there we’re talking mostly about information that might be at or near the horizon line which, for average posture during walking, is in the upper field.

Corbin:
A designer’s job is simplifying a complex environment. In the classic example of Harry Beck’s London Tube map, relative distances and physical accuracy were sacrificed to create a more helpful cognitive map. In your book, you say that people’s mental maps are generally very inaccurate, leading to confusion. Using the Tube example however, can’t you argue that even an incorrect mental map can be adequate to the task?

Harry Beck's London Tube Map

Ellard:
Yes, absolutely! It depends entirely on the task you’re trying to solve. In a tube map, you have a beautifully delineated set of nodes and connectors; provided you can only use the connectors that are shown to get from node to node, that map will not steer you wrong. In fact, it does a great job of giving you only the information you need to navigate.

But think of a situation where you’ve developed that kind of mental map but you need to do something different: imagine that you’re in a city that doesn’t have a consistent grid design. Your simplified mental “tube map” might be able to get you from place to place, but not efficiently. The reason? You’re cognitively limiting the connections you perceive between nodes. You don’t have a good sense of the geometry, and thus you make incorrect assumptions.

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Colin Ellard is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He has been conducting research and writing about the psychology of spatial perception for the last 25 years. Check out Colin’s blog here.

Kathy Long-Holland presents the discussion topics

I had invited Kathy Long Holland, a management consultant from Portland, OR to develop a “fast break” discussion with five topics relevant to today’s business leaders. She introduced them briefly to the audience, then we assigned topics to each table for further debate.

“The future is already here … it’s just not evenly distributed.”
William Gibson

Most of the people in the room are competitors. But in this open, collaborative environment, we quickly found common ground as these topics signal larger trends in society. For many of us, the conversation was as much about designing a life as it was about design firm management. I’ve collected a few key thoughts from each conversation:

Topic One: Economic Turmoil
Often event driven, business leaders have a choice: adapt to changing conditions or fail. We watch the economy closely for signs, and make sure we’re prepared to take advantage of the entrepreneurial opportunities that arise.

Designers are being pulled in two directions:

• The idea, the concept, the “trusted advisor” consultative service
• Commoditized design – value in production, lower prices

One positive outcome of economic turmoil is the ability to restructure, rethink assumptions. For our firms:

• Consider virtual teaming to bring in a variety of skill sets to solve a given problem. You’ll have lower overhead, and increased opportunity to interact and learn from other disciplines.
• Can you offer new services to an underserved market? Can you expand services to your existing clients by forging partnerships with other firms?

For our clients:

• Consider reducing the project fee for regular payments
• Renegotiate existing contracts to benefit your clients, providing more immediate value
• Consider long-term system maintenance contracts for your projects (think of it as an owner’s manual).
• Research and offer creative financing alternatives to mitigate funding-based project delays.

Members of the Principals and Partners group discuss Economic Turmoil and offer advice.

Topic Two: 65+
This age group owns the economic wealth, and has the means to demand more from us as designers. The challenge is to integrate intuitive interfaces and seamless content across a variety of media.

• Design must be simplified, legible, and intuitive. Many 65+ are clamoring for technology that is less complex, but does more to suit their needs.
• Increased demand for resort-style living, with walkable amenities such as medical facilities and businesses that cater to the elderly on site, connect them to transit.
• Continuing education is a priority: Museums, history – a desire to reflect, learn, experience.
• Reach out to that “audience of one” with targeted communications, especially with regard to wayfinding tools.

Topic Three: Devolution
Social Media has devolved quickly, to the point where no one believes anything anymore. For our companies and our clients, what is the integrity of the message? What does one do to protect both personal and corporate security online?

Should we be forming “anti-social networks” favoring instead a return to old-fashioned relationship building?

• Social media is predominantly market/buyer oriented. Face to face always trumps virtual contact.
• Even though you may “feel” in tune and connected, is social media justifiable?
• Third-party endorsements validate Internet messages: it’s much better for a client or colleague to recommend you via LinkedIn than for you to spout how good you are on Twitter.
• Due to technical glitches, such as incorrect messages in digital and static tools, no one believes anything anymore.
• There is no security or privacy anymore online.

Topic Four: Throw Away
There is an inherent conflict between consumption-driven economies and ecosystem limitations. As designers, we have a responsibility, both to our clients and the environment, to design intelligent systems that inform and direct in a sustainable way.

For our firms:

• Look at your office space requirements, staffing models. Do what you can to reduce your footprint and be more efficient.
• Staffers working from home use less power.
• Build sustainable products, materials into your design process, office operations.
• Build sustainable policies into your culture: four day, 10 hour work week
• Purchase transit passes rather than paying for parking

For our clients:

• Creating sustainable design solutions needs to be more than just fashionable; it needs to be a mandate.
• Use new technologies to save on travel
• Rely on digital systems to replace unfriendly, material-heavy design outcomes: exhibits, environments
• Be aware of your consumption, downstream effects of products that will eventually end up in landfills

What will fuel our future consumption, and at what cost to the environment? This is a design challenge, not a political one.

Mark VanderKlipp addresses peers at the Principals and Partners Luncheon

Topic Five: RIGHT NOW
Everyone wants information immediately. In a service business, you need to master both the message and the technology to reach your audiences clearly in an increasingly noisy world.

People create “false lives” around informational immediacy; thinking that they have to be plugged in at all times. We need to pull back and see the big picture without being distracted by information overload.

• Work is always due “now;” step back and analyze. What’s necessary? Is the client asking for real results or do they just want information quickly?
• Framing the project: ask “why” before asking “how.”
• Maintaining quality in the ‘right now’ is the most challenging part. Are we working so fast that we lose sight of project objectives?
• Know who you are, what you stand for, why you’re relevant to clients so you can respond to the “right now” in appropriate ways.
• There will never be enough time. Carve time out of your life to build the firm you want to be in – know your brand and own it!

The IDA’s position on the paper:

Downtown development maximizes the value and use of transportation infrastructure through compact development. By their very nature, downtowns support livable communities, economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability constructs of the USDOT’s Strategic Plan. In addition, downtown management organizations provide reliable local partners for advancing the USDOT Strategic goals and objectives. Through its leadership, membership organizations, communication network and conferences, IDA is uniquely positioned to help the USDOT promote and support this plan, including:

• Identifying and/or developing local delivery system(s) through IDA and its membership organizations around the country to support the implementation of the USDOT Strategic Plan.
• Communicating to local and state leadership to support USDOT to meet these goals
• Help identify local funding sources including special assessments, tax increment and others
• Offer best practices in parking management, behavioral incentives such as congestion pricing, communications, marketing and PR strategies, multi‐disciplinary approaches to problem‐solving, TOD and others.

The report includes five major areas of interest: road safety, state of good repair, maintaining economic competitiveness, livable communities and environmental sustainability. Read the entire report here:

USDOT Strategic Plan: “Transportation for a New Generation” Summary

This is the first in a series of interviews with Colin Ellard, author of “You Are Here – Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost at the Mall.” When the book came out in 2009, we first read it cover to cover, then sent an email to Colin to ask more specific questions about wayfinding in general. We hope you enjoy these excerpts from our interview.

You Are Here, by Colin Ellard

Corbin:
As environmental graphic designers, we work every day designing solutions for people who get lost. We’ve found an increasing awareness on the part of clients for our services, and an increasing expectation of a well-designed environment from their target audiences. Did you write this book to respond to this trend, or conversely, have you seen an outpouring of interest from people who have finally “seen the light” as far as the value of wayfinding?

Ellard:
I’ll be completely honest about this and tell you that I came to this subject by a long and idiosyncratic route. I began scientific life as a student of animal behaviour, focused on how animals found their way but also how they used their understanding of space to cope with the basic problems of life: finding food, shelter, defense from predators, and so on.

It was only in 2005 that I began to think about the wider implications of the work I was doing. I remember thinking that it would be a great way to understand how animals processed spatial information if, rather than me building all kinds of contraptions to test their abilities, they could just somehow build their OWN contraptions. I blush now when I think of how long it took for me to realize that there is such an animal, and of course we’re it.

I began to talk to people who were in the business of building spaces — architects and planners. Though designers understood the importance of thinking about how people navigate spaces, they were frustrated by a lack of interest among scientists in putting the connections between design and psychology on an empirical basis. I was thrilled to discover that something I had stumbled on also appeared to be something in which there was a good deal of interest.

So really, I wrote the book to get that kind of project started — a marriage of psychology and design.

Corbin:
We know that design is a business of managing multiple perspectives. But the most important perspective is that of the potential visitor. Do you see a future where behavioral psychology is merged more fully with design disciplines to anticipate those needs? If so, what would the merging of those disciplines look like?

Ellard:
We’re poised at the threshold of doing absolutely brilliant things at the interface of design and psychology. In part this is simply because we’re ready — there’s a great thirst for multidisciplinary approaches to solving real world problems. Increasingly, behavioural scientists (at least the ones I talk to) are realizing that the really exciting prospects for future work involve climbing down from ivory towers and taking fresh, new perspectives.

But there are other reasons to be excited about such a merger, because of the kinds of technology available now. In our lab, we can simulate a built environment using immersive virtual reality; much the same way we can test in real built settings. Imagine being able to design a structure in pixels, and have people visit the virtual structure not only to tell you what they think of it, but also to have access to their brain and body states so that you know exactly how the environment affects them. We can measure many aspects of behaviour: eye gaze, body movement, emotional state, brain waves. It turns design into a new kind of science and I get goosebumps thinking about the possibilities.

Makes me wish I was just starting out rather than being halfway through the race!

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Colin Ellard is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He has been conducting research and writing about the psychology of spatial perception for the last 25 years. Check out Colin’s blog here.

Link to the article

The Value of Local

Living in a relatively small town in an economically challenged state, we understand the intrinsic benefit of this concept. In fact, many of our staffers are involved in community initiatives to bring Traverse City, MI into a more global mindset, while building on the things that make our city unique. We know that the choices we make day to day either contribute to, or detract from, our local community. And we support this concept in communities across America; creatively rebuilding through local initiatives will help our nation pull out of this downturn.

It’s amazing the kinds of businesses that this area attracts. Daily we see examples of people who’ve chosen to live and work here, both for the quality of life it affords, as well as the opportunity for growth. Global enterprises and personalities have chosen Traverse City as a home base for many reasons; in response, we’ve grown to become a world class destination.

Lately we’ve experienced a movement toward localism as we’ve approached potential clients: a project in Illinois was awarded to an in-state competitor rather than our Michigan-based firm. Conversely, we have benefited from this mindset by winning projects in Michigan over out of state firms.

We’d like to take a moment to comment on this trend as we look toward the future.

The Value of Distance

With each new project, we bring the perspective of a first-time visitor. This allows us to be objective in our assessment and design, often leading to discoveries that might come as a surprise to our clients. The saying goes that a fish has no awareness of the water it’s in; in much the same way, the perspective of an outside resource can provide unforeseen value, especially as it relates to wayfinding.

Case in point: for one large regional client, we brought the point of view of that first-time visitor to the table: faced with a region containing almost 100 cities and townships, and within those several primary destinations, how do I find my way?

We’ve created a system of wayfinding cues that might not have been obvious to locals: first, we broke the region into three separate districts: downtown, the city limits and the county. Then we created permanent reference points for visitors: the network of highways that penetrate the region. Using these cues, a visitor can triangulate a destination in a number of ways: DOT signs, printed maps, wayfinding signage and/or technology tools. We saw a resource that locals took for granted and used it to wayfinding advantage. Destinations throughout the region can now use this simple logic as a coding device when communicating to their audiences; as new destinations are added, the system can expand indefinitely. New wayfinding signage currently being installed conveys this logic.

When should a community look beyond itself?

As we well know, not every service is available to every community. This is particularly true when one considers highly skilled and niche services such as wayfinding design and programming. Many institutions and cities have identified wayfinding as a priority, and often look to local resources as a first option. But if indeed they find that there are no qualified local designers, it’s important to look outside of their immediate area. Because public funds are often allocated for these projects, finding the most qualified company for the job ensures that those funds are invested wisely.

The Reality of Distance

While an outside perspective is valuable, sometimes an outside presence is questioned. We’ve seen this in many communities where we’ve worked: “why does it take a firm from Michigan to solve our local challenges? And why are we paying them to come all the way to (insert city name here) to do this work?”

Fair questions, to be sure.

In medicine, you bring in a specialist to diagnose, treat and develop a strategy to resolve your condition. But it would be a waste of time and money to rely on that specialist for day to day care. Rather, you rely on a local practitioner to help you with the day to day management of a condition. It’s exactly the same with design services: it’s your investment in design that puts you on the right track, if you’ll pardon the pun. It’s the designer’s investment in you that keeps everyone moving forward.

Additionally, technology allows us to be present when budgets do not. In recent years our cost of doing business has dropped substantially because of WebEx and other technologies. We regularly rely on Web-based mapping to confirm and reinforce wayfinding decisions; and we often partner with local firms for their perspective and presence as needed.

All Sign Shops Are Not Equal

The perspective we’re providing on design services applies equally to sign fabrication. We know that all cities have sign shops. So why wouldn’t an institution hire a local commercial sign shop to implement their wayfinding system? Experience tells us that not all sign shops are capable:

• At times, the complexity and management of a large project is beyond the capacity of a local sign fabricator
• Nationally-recognized fabricators can bring experience in project management, engineering, permitting and economies of scale to bear on a project, often saving time and money in the long run.
• These fabricators have access to a large shop in which to marshal supplies and store completed components prior to installation. Most commercial sign shops do not possess such capacity.
• Often wayfinding signs are located along major roadways and require installers to safely manage traffic while they work. A well-equipped, experienced installer is capable of accomplishing this.

Many of our clients use national fabricators to engineer and build wayfinding program elements. They often employ local subcontractors to assist in installation and management. But we know that for ongoing maintenance, it’s best to keep it local, to develop relationships and understanding over time to help maintain the system. The City of Grand Rapids is one example of many Corbin clients who’ve achieved success in this way.

Conclusion

If you look to our past experience, our clients have provided substantial evidence that there is value in choosing a specialized consultant to manage an important issue such as wayfinding. As with signage, not everyone has the experience or the capacity to do it efficiently or correctly. Our specialization in wayfinding design for our clients is in many ways unmatched in North America. We continue to draw on this experience as we bring our point of view to new challenges and partnerships.

We welcome your questions and commentary!

In this economy, it’s important to prove yourself as a versatile and willing free agent, able to bring expertise and perhaps a new perspective to any task that becomes necessary. During the life of a small business, people can potentially wear many hats to fill gaps in expertise

Case in point: a new Project Manager at Corbin (name withheld by request) was brought in to learn the ropes from our more experienced PMs when another was due to go on maternity leave. Because of the specialized nature of the work we do, it was important to allow adequate time for her to ramp up, building not only capability and knowledge, but also relationships with clients for the duration of the leave. Having been properly prepared, she dove in and managed the work beautifully. Soon she was not only assisting on existing projects, but developing new projects of her own.

Then came the Great Recession.

Corbin’s management needed to usher two people out of the company who were unfortunately not a part of the core business. It was a difficult time for all, including those who were having to pick up duties that had been assigned to full-time staff.

This Project Manager was asked to handle some administrative tasks that had previously been outside of her job description, such as expense reports. She accepted these assignments with the same energy that she’d given to her project management work. The results speak for themselves:

• An efficient, detail oriented approach, eliminating errors for our clients and extra costs for the company
• New internal protocols for submitting information
• Customized expense submittals per specific client requests
• Addition of expense reports into our studio management software
• New technologies purchased to save costs, paper and provide electronic verification of expenses for clients
• Most recently, a 4-figure annual savings on a Web conferencing contract!

Finding the right people has been and always will be critical to the ongoing success of any firm. Once we found someone like this Project Manager, we wanted to keep her motivated and busy, whether with billable work or in support of other functions. Her ability to bring fresh eyes and energy to a task that could be construed as drudgery saved us money and was a big relief to our other support staff. While she was surely not the only one who picked up extra duties in this recession, she’s used her position and skills to save us significant dollars.

More importantly, she’s shown us all a bit of everyday heroism.