2023 SEGDVoices 03

Oct 25, 2023
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Signage at airports worldwide

In the course of the first 100 years of commercial aviation, airports have undergone a remarkable evolution from single-building ports to complex structures with multi-layered identities and capacity for millions of travellers from diverse cultures to pass through.


Airports embody the architectural and design tradition of the country or region they serve. They are high-tech environments where internationally standardised processes are expected to operate at maximum efficiency. Today, airports are increasingly evolving into lifestyle destinations in their own rite, often offering captivating entertainment and commercial attractions.


Wayfinding systems do more than simply guide travelers from one point in an airport to the next. Wayfinding is the visual language used to convey each airport’s unique identity using colours, fonts and pictograms. In this book, the authors Heike Nehl and Sibylle Schlaich, two leading information designers and wayfinding specialists, set out on a quest to decipher the unique identities in the wayfinding systems of over 100 different airports, examining along the way the storied past, present challenges and promising future of wayfinding across the globe.


The authors would like to pay tribute to Jane Davis Doggett, the SEGD 2018 fellow who passed away this year, whom they interviewed for the book.


About the Authors

The authors Heike Nehl and Sibylle Schlaich have been working on airport wayfinding systems for 15 years. They founded Moniteurs in 1994 and today, as information designers, they develop, together with their team, analogue and digital wayfinding systems for international airports. At home and abroad they regularly give lectures on the topic of orientation at airports and have taught at several universities.

Practice Areas

Focus Areas

In the course of the first 100 years of commercial aviation, airports have undergone a remarkable evolution from single-building ports to complex structures with multi-layered identities and capacity for millions of travellers from diverse cultures to pass through.

Airports embody the architectural and design tradition of the country or region they serve. They are high-tech environments where internationally standardised processes are expected to operate at maximum efficiency. Today, airports are increasingly evolving into lifestyle destinations in their own rite, often offering captivating entertainment and commercial attractions.

Wayfinding systems do more than simply guide travelers from one point in an airport to the next. Wayfinding is the visual language used to convey each airport’s unique identity using colours, fonts and pictograms. In this book, the authors Heike Nehl and Sibylle Schlaich, two leading information designers and wayfinding specialists, set out on a quest to decipher the unique identities in the wayfinding systems of over 100 different airports, examining along the way the storied past, present challenges and promising future of wayfinding across the globe.

The authors would like to pay tribute to Jane Davis Doggett, the SEGD 2018 fellow​ who passed away this year, whom they interviewed for the book.

About the Authors

The authors Heike Nehl and Sibylle Schlaich have been working on airport wayfinding systems for 15 years. They founded Moniteurs in 1994 and today, as information designers, they develop, together with their team, analogue and digital wayfinding systems for international airports. At home and abroad they regularly give lectures on the topic of orientation at airports and have taught at several universities.

About SEGD  

We are designers of experiences connecting people to place. SEGD is a multidisciplinary community collectively shaping the future of experience design. We are a thought leader and an amplifier in the practice of experience design.

SEGD is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit education organization.

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