Reading Community Arts Centre | Shanzeh Adnan

The Reading Community Arts Centre is a hub for indoor and outdoor art exhibitions, activities, screenings, located on the banks of the River Thames. The centre covers a large outdoor area, and in the site, a number of buildings and pavilions are connected by pathways. The outside area features pathways, steps and routes for visitors.

The Wayfinding strategy retained a number of key criteria: locations listed in alphabetical order, pictograms and directional arrows for locations, totems placed in areas at main decision points, black and white colour palette for totems with a range of location information, and single-colour use in totes placed in outside areas or buildings.

Each sign was created and located based on the user’s journey throughout the outdoor area of the community centre and what information they require at each stage.

The design aimed to provide clear navigation to the diverse range of users of the community centre, looking to use their time efficiently and to experience the exhibitions and facilities.

Design of the signage considered the architecture style of the centre. Black and white was selected to retain consistency across the system and allow for colour to be used on totems identifying particular locations.