Archives: Events
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The legacy of MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill – maps, murals and master of lettering
Date: 25 February 2021 ‘Max Gill … belongs to a rich chapter in the history of English art and design that is all too often over-looked in our enthusiasm for the rise of the adventurous but clinical modern, which (all too quickly) overtook it.’ (The Art Newspaper, 23 October 2020) Caroline Walker, great-niece of…
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Where do we go from here?
Date: 28 January 2021 Everywhere we go, we encounter implicit and explicit cues to guide us, from environment and behaviour to graphics and manuals. In complex environments, these cues become part of a system that can assist people to sort through data, fill out a form, absorb new information, or navigate a place. Acclaimed wayfinding…
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Intuitive wayfinding beyond vision
Date: 17 December 2020 Talks by human-centred designer and researcher Sophie Horrocks, and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at De Montfort University Dr Meredith Wilkinson. The design of our environment has the power to enable or disable all of us. How intuitively we’re able to navigate that environment impacts all aspects of our lives: how we…
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Many heads make light work. How multidisciplinary teams make for better wayfinding design
Date: 19 November 2020 A multi-disciplinary approach to wayfinding can result in a wide range of physical and cognitive differences being successfully accommodated with enhanced maintenance and cost efficiencies, with analytics allowing dynamic situations to be predicted, anticipated and managed. Ultimately, user experience and independent navigation feels intuitive, enhanced through adopting a multi-modal, user-centric approach…
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Towards a climate sustainable future
Date: 15 October 2020 While we have all been busy figuring out the endless stream of ’new normals’ brought about by COVID, the climate emergency has not gone away. Indeed, recent circumstances have brought some issues into even sharper relief: the desire for economic recovery to be tied to strong green priorities seems to be…
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Don’t fear the future: how interdisciplinary design is changing to meet new circumstances
Date: 10 September 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. Its impact transformed our economy, public and private spaces, and the way we went about our lives individually and collectively. Organisations in every sector, including our own wayfinding and sign industry, had to adapt and evolve quickly to changed priorities to help us navigate these uncertain…
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Wayfinding and cognitive neuroscience
Date: 23 July 2020 Can designers and cognitive neuroscientists collaborate to design a more navigable world? Professor Kate Jeffery (UCL) joined us to explore how cognitive mapping and other spatial processes underpin wayfinding in both humans and animals. How people and animals find their way around has been an intensive topic of research for almost…
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Sign design gets things moving again!
Date: 25 June 2020 A talk about wayfinding during the coronavirus lockdown, with Sander Baumann (designworkplan). Sander shared his experiences of wayfinding and sign design during lockdown, how his business changed overnight and how he found new opportunities to keep moving on. Recording Sander Baumann talk
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Thinking differently
Date: 11 February 2020 This talk provoked the status quo and encouraged new thinking to solve everyday navigation and wayfinding challenges. what3words British tech company has turned how we assign place addresses on its head. The company has developed a simple, human-friendly platform that allocates a three-word address to every 3m x 3m square in…
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An intelligent wayfinding strategy for Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Date: 30 January 2020 In the year of Euro 2020, we kicked off the new programme of SDS seminars with a talk by Simon Borg on the brief, challenges and inspiration behind Populous Activate’s commission for the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Simon examined how the practice’s cross-disciplinary design approach informed the development of authentic and long-lasting…