StretchLearn Course

Help People Find Their Way

The signage and wayfinding craft behind hospitals, airports, and campuses - decision points, sign types, message schedules, ADA and ISO standards - taught as a buildable system.

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Beginner9 hrSelf PacedRegistered

Course Overview

What this course is designed to develop

When someone walks into an unfamiliar hospital, transit station, or office tower, the difference between confidence and a stressful, late, frustrated arrival is environmental graphic design: the signs, maps, and spatial cues that answer Where am I, Where can I go, and How do I get there. This beginner course teaches the discipline the way practitioners at firms like Pentagram, Bruce Mau Design, and Applied Wayfinding actually work - starting from Paul Arthur and Romedi Passini's wayfinding model and Kevin Lynch's five elements of legibility, moving through a real site analysis, a sign-type taxonomy (identification, directional, informational, regulatory), and a message schedule that assigns every sign a location, message, and code. You will design to hard requirements - ADA 703 tactile-character and Braille rules, the 60-inch baseline for raised characters, ISO 7001 public symbols, and contrast and mounting-height numbers - and finish with an annotated signage location plan, a typed message schedule, and a sign-type drawing package a fabricator and a facilities team can build and install from.

Learning Outcomes

What the learner should be able to understand, build, or execute.

Analyse a building as a wayfinding system using Lynch's five elements and the four-stage decision model

Map decision points and circulation on a floor plan and place signs where choices are actually made

Classify every sign into the four sign-type families and build a coded sign-type family for a project

Write a message schedule that assigns each sign a unique code, location, message, and sign type

Apply ADA 703, ISO 7001, and contrast, height, and legibility standards to tactile and overhead signage

Produce an annotated signage location plan and sign-type drawing package a fabricator can build from

Curriculum Preview

Inside the curriculum: a structured path from fundamentals to execution.

Preview the course structure, see how the modules build on one another, and understand the path this program is designed to take you through.

Module 1

Module 1: How People Find Their Way

Reframe signage from decoration to a navigation system. Learn the wayfinding decision model, Lynch's five elements of a legible place, and the questions every environment must answer.

3 lessons

Wayfinding Is a Problem People SolveContent · 45 min

Preview Enabled

The Four-Stage Decision ModelContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Lynch's Five Elements of a Legible PlaceContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Module 2

Module 2: Analysing a Building and Planning Routes

Turn a floor plan into a wayfinding analysis: audit the site, map circulation and decision points, define destinations and user journeys, and structure the information hierarchy.

3 lessons

The Site Audit and Wayfinding WalkContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Mapping Circulation, Destinations, and JourneysContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Information Hierarchy and NamingContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Module 3

Module 3: Sign Types, Messages, and Standards

Build the toolkit: the four sign-type families, a coded sign-type system, the message schedule that drives fabrication, and the ADA and ISO standards every sign must meet.

3 lessons

The Four Sign-Type FamiliesContent · 45 min

LMS Access

The Message ScheduleContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Accessibility and Symbol StandardsContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Module 4

Module 4: Materials, Branding, and Handoff

Take the system into the real world: choose materials and fabrication methods, brand the environment consistently, and assemble the location plan and drawing package a fabricator builds from.

3 lessons

Materials, Mounting, and FabricationContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Spatial Branding and the Visual SystemContent · 45 min

LMS Access

The Location Plan and Fabricator HandoffContent · 45 min

LMS Access

Built for Application

A complete learning path, not a one-off inspiration hit.

This program is designed around progression: focused lessons, structured modules, applied resources, assessments, and a course rhythm that turns information into usable capability.

wayfindingenvironmental graphic designsignage systemsADA signagespatial brandingmessage schedulepictogramssign-type design