Interpretive Signs

Overview of Product Interpretive signs play an important role in educating visitors and in influencing their behaviour on site. A good interpretive sign needs to be well designed with attractive illustrations and photographs and with text written in an attractive manner. It is disheartening to spend a significant amount of time designing and commissioning an interpretive sign only to see visitors ignore it. The notes below should help clients understand the role of an interpretive sign and ensure that it is got right first time.

Technical Spec A successful interpretive sign will have been carefully planned in advance. No more than two themes should be explored on an interpretive sign and it is therefore important that rather than designing signs individually the requirements of the whole site are considered. Planning the interpretive or interpretation requirements for the entire site involves look at the current profile of visitors, assessing the target profile, considering the extend to which interpretive signs can help attract and retain visitors.

Once the target audience for the interpretive signs project has been reviewed consideration needs to be given to the content of each panel. There is a tendency for clients to wish to have a small number of large interpretive signs but often information can be far better presented by a series of small signs. Interpretation when presented on an outdoor or external sign must be accessible to a wide audience and large panels with too much content discourage visitors from reading the interpretive sign. At Shelly signs we recommend picking no more than two themes and keeping the message on the interpretive sign very concise. For clients new to designing, managing and producing projects including interpretive signs there are a couple of very helpful courses run in the UK. Susan Cross runs a very interesting course based on planning interpretive signs and content called Lively Leaflets and Perky Panels – this course always lives upto its’ name and is thoroughly recommended. John Verka the interpretive expert from the US runs several courses at Plas Tan Y Bwlch which are thought provoking and challenging about good quality interpretive signs. In addition to the planning and design components care needs to be taken with the materials and framing structures used for interpretive signs. Our recommendations concerning these are given in other briefing papers on the website.

Case Study The Lions Club in Knutsford sponsored a series of heritage interpretation panels entitled Museum in the Street. The project consisted of a series of wall mounted, post mounted and lectern frame mounted heritage interpretation signs. Each heritage interpretation panel included old black and white archive photographs which showed the history of the town in an evocative light. All these heritage interpretation panels were designed to a standard style and are displayed on the walls of public buildings, private houses and in a number of prominent town centre locations.