Viper Rural

Contemporary Signage for Park

Viper Case Study

The Brief

What’s one of the ways to get your park a Green Flag? Improve the signage and visitor mapping. The Green Flag award is the park equivalent of the Blue Flag award for beaches, they show the park is being well managed and the visitor comes first.

Keynsham Memorial Park, managed by Bath & North East Somerset Council, is a large park that cuts through this area on the outskirts of Bristol. Very busy and very popular thanks to lots of different facilities.

The brief required:

• Development of a common “branding” to inform the design of all signage, interpretation and marketing tools, providing consistency throughout Keynsham Memorial Park
• Delivery of detailed design and production of 2 primary entrance signs to the Park

The branding had to conform to the council’s own guidelines while creating an identity for the park itself.

Clearly the signs had to be usable and fit-for-purpose but they also had to be fit-for-location. A sympathetic approach to the park setting and the urban context would be needed.

The Solution

Viper spent valuable time on site developing a ‘visual essence’ of the park and surrounds. Photographs of all key features and vistas were compiled to guide the design process.

The colours taken from the essence informed the visual hierarchy of the features on the signs: main paths, secondary paths, wooded area, grass areas and ‘destinations’ like play areas. Mock-ups were printed and then tested on visitors in the park. Did they like the colour schemes? Were they legible? Could you find your way through and out?

Designs were refined to now include walking times. The park is deceptively long, ellipses indicating 5 minutes walking time give a rough idea of how long it will take to move through.

Structural options were then worked on. The signs needed to be robust, simple and stylish and not municipal or purely functional. The council also wanted to reproduce the signs at all the major entrances, ease of duplication had to be taken into account.

Oak uprights were selected along with Bath stone plinths to frame the aluminium panel.

The draft designs were tested via the Parks Forum in the area, they made valuable suggestions concerning scale and text content. Full scale mock-ups were produced to help staff understand the scale and impact the signs would have.

An intricate but important design and testing period resulted in practical improvements.

The Result

Contemporary signage that is helpful, legible and informative is such a nice way to welcome you into a park. Keynsham Memorial Park has this now.

The white background on the monolith panels ensure great legibility but aren’t garish from a distance allowing the vista of the park to catch your eye first. The angular style is modern and urban but the oak and Bath stone soften the structure and give it context. Signage should add value to the park experience, we feel these do.

The design met with such approval a third was requested.

The brand guidelines provide the park managers with a springboard for spreading well designed signage through out the park. Viper is sure that achieving the Green Flag award will be easier now.