Sometimes we may walk into a place and get transported to a totally different realm. It could be a retail store, a café, an exhibition corner, a showcase gallery, or just a small nook you chance upon at the corner of the street. The immersive experience you get is no doubt the mood or atmosphere from the entire interior – the works of the lighting and furniture among other things being put together. One major attribute is also environmental graphics, an important tool used by designers to shape the essence of a place.
Environmental graphics integrate communications design into a built environment to communicate or provide a message to the recipient. One common form of environmental graphic is wayfinding, a series of signage for providing directions and whereabouts for the visitor to navigate easily in a building for example a shopping mall, train station, or office tower.
The other type of environmental graphics is more of communicating information, identity, and sense of the place like an exhibition gallery or a museum. In this case, information about the subject matter is brought alive through a series of mediums sometimes static like 3-d wall display panels and other times interactive like touch screens or videos.
Still, there’re other spaces like cafes, restaurants, or retail stores, larger spaces with more room for environmental graphics. In these areas, the graphics help to reinforce a design theme, identity, and ambience, successfully transporting the built environment to another realm.
The design of the Jurong Hospital site office is an apt example of how Kyoob-id injected a theme of convivial atmosphere of a theme park for employees. Using environmental graphics replicating fireworks and roller coasters to infuse the office especially the communal areas at the breakout and waiting spaces, a happy and fun environment is engendered.
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