· Signage, Print
Paper mock-ups before anything is made
Why every sign we design spends two weeks taped to a wall as a paper print before it goes to a fabricator.
Before the East Fork library reopened, we printed all 146 signs on paper at full size and taped them up for two weeks. Staff wrote on them in marker.
Twenty-three moved, six were cut and four were added. Each of those changes would have cost a fabricated sign, a fixing and a patched wall if we had found it after installation.
What paper catches
- Signs placed where a door opens over them.
- Text too small to read from where people actually stand.
- Arrows that point the right way on the plan and the wrong way in the room.
What paper misses
Paper does not show glare from a window or how a material ages, so we still order one sample of every finished sign type and hang it on site for a week.