Signage and wayfinding for Tonic Galleries

Each of the five main hospitals in the Lothians has a space designated as an art gallery. These spaces, run by Tonic Arts, are often difficult to find. The challenge was to devise a consistent, easy to replicate system, that would point patients, staff and visitors to galleries and also clearly mark those spaces as galleries.

An additional challenge that we needed to overcome was to differentiate the gallery signage amidst the vast proliferation of signage already on the hospital walls - and in such a way that our signage would be noticeable but not obtrusive.

For way-finding, we adopted a guerrilla tactic by developing a-typical signage that could be put round corners and in unusual locations anywhere in a hospital, working deliberately contrary to the standard type signage. This approach reflected the creative nature of the galleries themselves.

Once in the gallery, the challenge was to define the gallery space using information panels and gallery title-plates, but in such a way so as not to compete with artwork on display.

The signage and way-finding was applied to all five major hospitals in the Lothians.