NPS Sign Program, Issue 1
A 12-page brochure, Issue 1 of the NPS Sign Program, issued in November 2006 by Harpers Ferry Center with Bunting Graphics, the sole contracted sign maker.
What it is
A 12-page brochure, Issue 1 of the NPS Sign Program, issued in November 2006 by Harpers Ferry Center with Bunting Graphics, the sole contracted sign maker. It introduces the UniGuide Sign Standards, approved by the NPS Director on 29 September 2003, and tells parks how to buy signs that comply. It walks through four families: park and facility identity signs (a green bar over a warm grey field, NPS Rawlinson and Frutiger type, the Arrowhead logo), motorist guidance signs in FHWA brown set in NPS Roadway and Clearview, the modular Visitor Information System, and interpretive wayside exhibits. A question-and-answer section explains why the 1978 standards were replaced: 294 parks and 282 million visitors then against 390 parks and 429 million now, visitors who are older and more international, and digital fabrication. It ends with the parts of a park sign plan, from assessment to drawings.
Why read it now
The core claim is that signs gain authority by repetition of style, the way a ranger gains credibility from a uniform. That holds. Work at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute on distinctive brand assets, including Jenni Romaniuk's, treats consistent visual cues as the condition for being recognised at all. The more useful idea is the split between fixed and free. The sign panel is prescribed; the structure that holds it can be timber, masonry or steel to suit the landscape. That is a clearer rule than most brand guidelines, which try to fix everything and then get ignored. The 'eyefuls' principle, information in small discrete chunks, matches later usability findings that people scan rather than read. What has dated: the ordering paths, phone numbers and single-supplier contract belong to 2006 federal purchasing, and nothing here measures whether visitors found their way better. Use: for a business with several branches, write down which parts of the signage and storefront are fixed at every site and which each branch may adapt, then audit existing signs against that list before ordering new ones.
Passages worth keeping
Signs are the most frequently used means of communicating with park visitors.
اللافتة هي أكثر وسيلة تتواصل بها الهيئة مع زوارها، ولذلك تستحق معيارًا دقيقًا كأي وسيلة إعلامية أخرى.
Just as the credibility of park rangers is enhanced by the consistency of their uniforms, signs gain authority by repetition of style.
كما يزيد الزي الموحد ثقة الناس بالحارس، تكسب اللافتات سلطتها حين يتكرر أسلوبها في كل متنزه.
The goal of the standards is to find the appropriate point between the extremes of absolute uniformity on the one hand, and exhaustive custom design on the other.
الهدف نقطة وسط بين توحيد كامل يجعل اللافتات جامدة، وتصميم خاص لكل حالة يرفع التكلفة ويضعف صلة المتنزه بالهيئة.
Consistency is achieved by the conformity of the sign panel; appropriateness is assured by providing variety in the form and the material of the sign's structure.
الثبات يأتي من توحيد لوحة اللافتة، والملاءمة للمكان تأتي من تنويع شكل الهيكل الحامل ومادته.
A systematic approach to sign communication can mean fewer signs.
التخطيط المنظم للرسائل قد يقلل عدد اللافتات، كما حدث حين دُمجت ثلاث لافتات في لافتة واحدة عند بداية أحد المسارات.
What it teaches best
Read the original npshistory.com
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