Blogs, News, and Other Links: August 2009

Arrows and Icons Launches

A new online magazine for the EGD community was launched this month.

EGD Tweeters

People and organizations in the EGD community that are on Twitter.

US Border Sign Removed

A sign at a US-Canada border crossing designed by Pentagram is being dismantled because of fears that it will be target for terrorists.

Signs at Historic Sites

Post on the National Trust Historic Sites blog about signs at historic sites.

National Signage Research and Education Conference

October 13-15 in Cincinnati.

College Students Build 'Wayfinder' For Their School

Two students at Simon Fraser University in Canada built an interactive "wayfinder" kiosk for navigating around the campus.

The Uproar Over IKEA's Typeface Change

There's a lot of chatter about this on the web.

Who is Dieter Rams?

Dieter Rams, born in 1932 in Germany, is one of the most influential industrial designers in the 20th and 21st centuries. He served in many capacities at Braun for 40 years, until 1995. Braun is a well-known German manufacturer of electronic consumer products. Braun products are characterized by simple, refined design with an emphasis on function and reasonable cost. He has influenced many younger designers, including Jonathan Ive, the head of design for Apple. Of particular interest to all designers is Dieter Rams' personal definition of "good design". A profile of the man, some of his work, and his definition can be see online at www.designmuseum.org.

How does the Dieter Rams' definition of "good design" apply to the design of architectural sign programs? Many sign installations are over-designed. They are aggressive and demand too much attention. They exhibit personal expression rather than problem solving. Architectural signs should take their place as part of the building, like a door hinge or window. It is the designer's job to find the solution which integrates the architectural sign program into the environment in which it is placed. The solution need not be bland, just not overdone.

Signs at the border

Fast Company has published a short interview with Michael Beirut of Pentagram on the subject of the recent decision to dismantle a set of 21’ high letters designed for the US crossing station at the Canadian border in Massena, NY. The story briefly describes the chronology of design, and the subsequent decision to remove the letters for security reasons. I was impressed by Beirut’s subtle discussion of the issues at hand and his determination not to fall into the easy and predictable mode of good design advocate vs. bureaucratic cretins. I was particularly moved by his awareness of the difficult tasks facing individuals who are charged with insuring our safety and security. This is a good read!

Click here to read the interview.

Microsoft to release web versions of Office apps

There was a story on NPR's "Morning Edition" this morning about the rise of web applications for word processing, spreadsheets, and other office needs. Google and others have had their own versions of these online apps out for a while now, but soon Microsoft will be jumping into the mix with free online versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint when Office 2010 is released next year.

Click here to listen to the NPR story.

Architectural sign programs and the design-build process

I approach the subject of the design-build process with respect for the strong feelings it arouses in the environmental graphics industry, but I am also convinced it is an important topic that should be discussed in a serious and balanced way. This topic resides just below the surface of the relationship between sign manufacturers and environmental graphic design firms; when it rises to the surface, it is often accompanied by acrimony and hostility.

Why is it so important? I participated in a panel presentation at the SEGD conference several weeks ago in San Diego, and at the conclusion of the session I asked an audience of about 3 dozen designers the following question: If you add up all of the construction projects in the United States that require an architectural sign program, what percentage of these sign programs are designed by an independent SEGD member or firm? When I received no response, I asked that they speculate… did they touch 50% of the projects? No. Did they touch 25% of them? No. Finally, a verbal consensus began to emerge that they probably were not involved with more than 10% - 20% of these projects.

I then asked another question: If SEGD designers are not responsible for the signs that are going into all of these projects, who is doing the design work that is necessary for signs to actually appear on the wall? A fellow sitting next to me, an architect who had been a co-panelist for the presentation, spoke a single word: manufacturers. The designers in the audience quietly murmured their agreement, and a pretty disagreeable conclusion was apparent.

It is likely that up to 80% of the sign programs implemented in the United States each year are not designed by members of the professional organization that has been created to foster a responsible and design-sensitive approach to the performance of this exact function in the marketplace.

So what do we think this means? At one level, it means that design control of many sign programs resides with manufacturers. But it also means that an opportunity may exist in the marketplace for environmental graphic designers and manufacturers alike. Let’s step outside the box and really examine the nature of design-build, what it could mean for the architectural signage industry, how it works, and how it might be made more design-sensitive. The observations I make here are my own, drawn from experience over more than two decades, and they reflect the perspective of a designer as well as a fabricator. My goal is to initiate a conversation, and to that end, at Identia we plan to continue an exploration of various aspects of the design-build process. Our purpose is to identify financial opportunities, and to foster collaboration between designers and sign manufacturers.

Observations:

1. Design-build in the architectural sign industry is a reality. It fills a gap in the marketplace, especially for projects with limited budgets.

2. Design-build appears in 2 principal configurations: (a) architectural sign companies may provide design and programming services with in-house staff or (b) architectural sign companies and independent EGD firms may form joint venture partnerships for specific projects.

3. The quality of design/programming/documentation work, and the overall sign product quality executed, supplied, and installed by firms working in the design-build mode varies wildly from poor to excellent.

4. Adoption of professional standards for sign program documentation by design-build firms would be beneficial to owners, designers, and manufacturers alike.

5. There are advantages to working in the design-build mode, and they include establishment of a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) at the beginning of a project, a single source of responsibility, overall cost savings, and faster project timelines. There are also disadvantages: design-build sometimes considers a narrower range of product solutions, there is always a potential downside to “putting all your eggs into one basket”, and design-build forgoes competitive bidding as one means of lowering total implementation costs.

6. The idea that the design-build model is not capable of producing architectural sign programs that are well-designed is simply not correct. Highly skilled and independent EGD firms can partner with manufacturers, or, alternatively, sign manufacturers can employ qualified and experienced design professionals within their own organizations. The quality of sign programs that emerge from the design-build approach vary as widely as they do under the independent design / competitive bid model.

7. Owners are capable of making sound decisions about the way the work on their projects is executed. There are various approaches to managing different types of building projects that professionals in the construction industry are familiar with. Each approach defines its own particular set of professional roles, responsibilities, and relationships. It is important for us to provide owners with accurate information about the design-build process, as it relates to signage, so they can make intelligent decisions.

8. A number of factors determine whether or not design-build is appropriate for a particular project. Is it financed with public funds and therefore subject to competitive bidding requirements? Is the project large or small? Is it straight-forward or complex? Are the sign requirements connected to other segments of design work such as identity or brand development? Is the project schedule compressed? All of these factors, and others, must be taken into consideration when considering design-build.

9. Architectural sign companies that are involved in design-build projects should not cut documentation corners, they should not disparage the value of environmental graphic design, and instead, should retain the services of competent design professionals, both within their own organizations, and through their project partners. Architectural sign companies that do not take this approach will reinforce the stereotype that design-build is long on build and short on design.

10. Professionals within the EGD community should not talk about “blackballing” manufacturers who participate in design-build projects. It would be more productive for the EGD community as a whole to recognize the compelling evidence of a need in the market for a model by which sign programs can be delivered with shorter project timelines, and with a lower total implementation price-tag.

Well-designed signs give us the safe and easy access we need to the places where we live, study, and work. It is unlikely that one process model for signage can effectively serve as a universal solution for all projects. We can see how forcefully the market has worked to define and select design-build as one alternative method for creating and implementing sign programs for certain types of projects. At Identia, we are working to develop tools and products that
enable designers and fabricators to be more productive, no matter what project approach they adopt. I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

New Features Released in Identia Online

Last weekend we released three exciting new and improved features in Identia Online. These new features include a redesigned set of filters for the Project List, a Copy Rows feature in the sign schedule, and improved tools for doing take-offs and project programming.

For more info on these features, please see the release announcement.

The demographics of signage

What do we really know about the architectural sign industry?

I have long been frustrated that so little hard information exists about the size and nature of the architectural sign industry. Over the years, I have compared notes with magazine publishers, designers, and owners of architectural sign companies, and the subject was a topic of discussion again last month at the ISA Sign Expo in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it’s clear that there is scant real evidence on which to base a quantitative description of our industry. Opinions, hunches, and anecdotal observations are poor substitutes for facts.

Let’s start with this basic question: How many architectural sign companies are there in North America? To be included in the count, a company must meet one of the following criteria: it must sell only architectural signage, or it must derive a significant portion of its total sales revenue from architectural sign projects. Where would you go, and what resources would you use to try and answer this question?

Some information can be gleaned from surveys that have been conducted by trade organizations and publications; mailing lists based on SIC codes present another means by which we can identify large numbers of sign companies that could be included in the count; and web-based search engines created specifically for the sign industry make it possible to filter data base lists of sign companies by product categories. Information from all of these sources sheds a little light on our question, but the picture is still not very precise. Hoping that I was not going off on some kind of fool’s errand, I decided to simply try to count individual architectural sign companies, while keeping in mind the following data points:

1. An industry survey conducted by Signs of the Times reports 33,000 sign companies in North America
2. In a recent member survey conducted by the International Sign Association, only 4.5% of the respondents specifically identified their firms as “architectural” sign companies
3. “Data Keepers” in the same organization, ISA, report that 33% of its members state that architectural signage work is part of their business
4. The publisher of Sign and Digital Graphics magazine reports that in their most recent subscriber survey, 32.5% of respondents indicated “architectural” signage is part of their business
5. The same source reports that in prior years, when subscribers were asked to classify their business by selecting just one category, only 2.5% selected the “architectural” category
6. Items 2-5 above are self-reported statistics submitted by individual sign companies and are not independently confirmed

The phrase “architectural signage” means different things to different people, and its usage and context varies throughout the sign industry and the design community. I have developed a check list of 4 attributes that can be used to distinguish “architectural” from “non-architectural” signs.

1. Architectural signs conform to a higher than average product quality standard when compared to the entire range of general signage products produced by the industry at large.
2. Architectural signs are normally specified by a 3rd party designer such as a graphic designer, an architect, an interior designer, etc; sometimes the specifier functions within the organizational structure of the purchaser as with facility-management design professionals, or within the sign fabrication company as a professional design service provider.
3. Architectural signs normally exist as part of a coordinated sign program, rather than as individual sign elements.
4. Architectural signs typically convey some type of utilitarian information that the sign viewer needs in order to gain access to a particular facility or environment; hence the growing use of the word “wayfinding” in the architectural signage industry today.

I began the counting process with a web-based search engine that claims to have more than 30,000 sign companies in its database. I looked for firms that said they could produce and sell “architectural” signage by executing individual searches, using the same filtering criteria, in 35 major US and Canadian metropolitan markets. This exercise returned a total of 4,480 individual companies, of which 3,482 (78%) maintain promotional websites with photographic examples of their work. I then conducted a visual inspection of each website and identified 366 companies that obviously met my definition of an architectural sign company. Let’s call these companies Group A. I also identified an additional 325 companies that probably met my criteria, and placed them in Group B.

The goal of the visual survey was to find examples of architectural signs within the product portfolio section of each website, and to answer two questions. How prevalent in the portfolio was architectural signage, as compared with other types of signs? Was there sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that architectural signage constitutes a “significant” portion of a given company’s sales revenue? Admittedly, the process of surveying and evaluating all of these websites was subjective, but I was guided by 25 years of experience in the industry, and the duck theory which holds that if something has webbed feet and goes quack-quack, chances are excellent it’s a duck. In this situation, I felt pretty comfortable trusting my instincts. This survey effort identified a pool of 3,482 potential candidates, determined that 691 (20%) of these met the architectural sign company criteria, and therefore, I believe it is reasonable to suggest the following:

If there are approximately 30,000 sign companies in North America, and if 1/3 of these companies say they are involved with architectural signage, we can assume a pool of about 10,000 companies. My survey of website portfolios indicates that 20% of the 10,000 are likely to be, according to our criteria, authentic architectural sign companies. Therefore, my hypothesis is that there are approximately 2,000 architectural sign companies in North America.

A number of questions arise right away. If there are 2,000 architectural sign companies out there, and I have identified 691, where are the remaining 1,309? There are a couple of things to keep in mind as we wrestle with this. First, we should remember that based on our survey, 22% of the sign companies in our pool of candidates do not have websites and were not, therefore, eligible for selection. Second, we should assume that some architectural sign companies are not in the search engine’s database. Third, and most important, our search covered only 35 major urban markets. We know from the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis that there are more than 100 additional 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tier market zones within the United States alone. A substantial number of the remaining 1,309 companies are located in these smaller markets.

Some confusion also surrounds the discrepancy between the large quantity of companies that say architectural signage is a portion of their business, (33%), and the comparatively small number of companies that self-identify exclusively as architectural sign companies (2.5% - 4.5%). My search did confirm one fact that may help to explain the numbers: it is absolutely clear that the degree of involvement in the architectural sign business by individual companies varies dramatically from very high to very low. This may indicate there are a relatively small number of companies with a very high degree of involvement with architectural signage, and a much larger number of companies with a very low level of involvement.

This effort to count architectural sign companies was not a “scientific” one, and at least 3 qualifications should be noted:

• The assumption that there are about 30,000 sign companies in North America is unverified; therefore, the derived quantity of 2,000 architectural sign companies is also unverified. The absence of verification does not mean that the data is necessarily inaccurate, it does mean that it has not been independently confirmed.
• My definition of architectural signage, and my criteria for selecting an architectural signage company from a pool of candidates, are both subjective.
• My survey of websites could not obtain any measurement of the portion of a particular sign company’s sales revenue that is attributable to architectural signage. My selection criteria required that the portion be “significant”, but my judgment was not based on any quantifiable data.

These qualifications notwithstanding, I think it is important to note that we did succeed in compiling a hard count of 691 real architectural sign companies, and that all of them have been individually vetted. If we are going to develop a body of quantifiable information about the nature of architectural sign companies, and the architectural sign business as a whole, we have to move away from the current reliance on self-reported data. The commercial interests of all sign companies involved in the architectural sector of the industry, their customers, and their suppliers would be well served by the availability of this kind of information.

I welcome your comments!