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How graphic design helps us navigate buildings

This 99 Design article by Alex Bigman gives a photo tour of wayfinding designs from hospitals, airports, and other government buildings.

If it weren’t for graphic design, you’d have a lot more trouble finding the restroom. Office buildings, museums and libraries would also become virtually impossible to navigate. And garages? Don’t even bother trying to remember where you parked.

Though we often take it for granted, wayfinding design – the environmental design practice involving the creation of signs and directories to help us figure out where we are and where we want to go in structures – is a key function of graphic design in everyday urban life.

Not long ago we became fascinated by the debates surrounding subway map design, and now wayfinding design has captivated us as well. Check out these thirty examples of awesome and unusual wayfinding signage, and think of how lost you’d be without it.