Signs, lettering in the Environment by Phill Baines and Catherine Dixon. A Summary.

Signs, lettering in the Environment by Phill Baines and Catherine Dixon

The main purpose of Baines and Dixon’s book is to discuss the function and execution of the signage we encounter in our environment every day. They look at examples of signage, both contemporary and historical and explain how these pieces of design work we take for granted help shape our lives.

The authors have divided the subject of environmental type into two main categories, informatory, signs which give directions. And regulatory, signs which give instruction or warnings. They go on to address how different elements including, readability, scale, contrast, letterform and placement are considered throughout the design process to create successful signage that is easily understood, and helps “determine the visual texture of our public environment and gives us our sense of place.”

Baines and Dixon look at these fundamental elements in more depth throughout the book, including the important role of typography plays, this includes aspects such as the white space between letters, the clarity of numerals and choice of colour for optimum legibility from long distances, these elements all are strategically planed and well research.The authors use the “Anderson Report” to provide evidence and to back up their solutions and theories on designing for informatory signs. The Anderson report was the results of an advisory committee set up by the government in 1957 to look at how to design signage for motorways. The report concluded, among other things, that junctions were to be signed three times with map-type representations and information was to be legible from 600 feet, colours for background and text were also specified, all of which we still use today.

Throughout the book Baines and Dixon use hundreds of photographs to back up and expand on their theories, each set of pictures is accompanied with a descriptive summery.

The authors highlight that, “Designers need to be aware of the functional needs of signage as well as the possibilities it can have for reflecting the identity of their client.” This is a key concept that designers should be mindful of throughout the design process, thinking of both the end user (e.g. the public) and their clients needs. While road signs are designed to be neutral for maximum readability other transport networks, such as the train network, use signing as an extension of their identity. Baines and Dixon give an example of the first company to do this, which was The Underground Electric Railways of London in 1916, who commissioned their own typeface to be used consistently throughout their brand.

Baines and Dixon’s main objective in this book is to stress the importance of sign design and environmental type has in our environment, from road signs to inscriptions or names on public spaces, all the typographic material that surrounds us contributes not only to how our surroundings look but also how it works.