MITID Way Finding System
MITID Way Finding is a classroom project done in a group of two, for our Design Institute (MIT Institute Of Design) to ease the process of movement and navigation in the campus, designed keeping in mind the first time visitors approaching the destination from the main entrance of the campus to guided navigation within the campus buildings.
The architecture of the Institute building is such that finding your way around is painful especially to new or occasional visitors. The planning and appearance of all the floors is almost identical without any sign board which makes navigation inside the building and extremely confusing and difficult. The floor numbers were not indicated and work studios are not planned in any form or order or sequence. The numbering provided to each work studio does follow an order or directional progressiveness. Existing Signage are temporary in nature bringing in all sorts of confusing factors for the students, faculties and visitors. Inconsistency in visual language and user behaviour piles on the pain even more. The MITID way finding design solution has been designed keeping the same factors in mind.
Acrylic sheets are used as base with vinyl prints on them are used for creating the signage boards are used considering the budget, manufacturing and maintenance constrains.
We started by analysing and understanding the existing signage and naming system of different parts of the buildings like Floors were named G for Ground floor, F for First floor and so on and studios named as G1,G2,G3 if its on the ground floor and so on
Or F1,F2,F3 if its on the first floor and so on. Later we found, few major studios were further divided into sub sections which thus become G1A/ G1B or F1A/ F1B and so on. We found that the studios on each floors are not placed in any particular sequence so we decided to to first sequence them in right hand direction.ie. clock wise direction as psychology says it’s the tendency of a human brain to bend or turn toward right hand side direction or pan in clock wise direction. We even rearranged the studios according to their discipline requirements ( eg. Transport & Product on the ground floor as the workshops are more accessible).
Being a design university the environment should provoke students to be enthusiastic and less monotonous therefore we decided to colour code each education discipline making it easier to interpret and bring in an element of fun, individuality and curiosity to the design domains.
As our design building is very structured (columns and pillars) so to bring in a contrast we thought of a form which is not only straight but also has some curvilinear factor in it which is also eventually inspired from the logo of the Institute(MITID).
The project was well accepted by the jury, faculty members and most importantly the real users i.e. the students, visitors, industry panelists for the project evaluation and other staff members. As a visual design student this project gave an opportunity to peep into space design and system design domain to an extent. We got to understand the constrains or materials and user behavior in a three dimensional space.
We majorly take back system design techniques as our learning as so many small systems interlinked together in such a way that they depend on each other and over all give a smooth experience to the final user.
MITID way finding design project is a piece of design where we have tried to integrate graphic design and a very little of space design together.
