The railway station is a big scene, and it is also a general term. High-speed railway station ands subway stations, from a broad perspective, they all belong to railway stations. In our daily life, most of us should have experienced the travel services of railway stations more or less, and a large part of these services are completed through the station’s sign system, because modern railway stations are so huge, and the internal distribution is complex, and for passengers with poor sense of direction, it is still difficult to find the destination accurately. Therefore, the role of the railway station sign system is very important, so service providers who design and make railway station signs should make more efforts for this. Judging from the experience of abcMIX’s numerous railway station sign projects, the railway station sign system should meet the following 4 design principles.
Principle 1: The style is unified. The railway station is a typical densely populated place. Our usual long-distance travel is highly dependent on trains. Compared with other travel modes, the train travel mode has a higher cost performance. From the perspective of the existing railway station infrastructure, people’s cognition of the railway station has basically formed a certain degree of consensus. For example, the logo of the railway station is a unified logo throughout the country, which can also be called the brand of the railway company. The image, as well as the font and color of the name of the train station, most people may not go into it, but in fact these details are regulated, basically they need to be unified from top to bottom. The reason why people don’t pay special attention to these details is because these symbols are highly unified, and they are the same wherever they go. Naturally, people’s curiosity is not so strong, and they have no motivation to appreciate this unified style of identification symbols. If the railway station must highlight its personality, it is not impossible. The huge railway station building and supporting infrastructure can do a lot of work;
Principle 2: The logic is continuous. Except for subway stations, which are high-frequency scenarios, other ordinary railway stations and high-speed rail stations are low-frequency scenarios. That is to say, most people do not go to the railway station every day, but only when they need to travel occasionally. The railway station, in front of the huge railway station, is naturally not so familiar to ordinary people. For a few passengers, it can be described as unfamiliar, where to get tickets, where to enter the station, where is the toilet, where is the water dispenser, there are a series of questions such as where to wait in the station building for specific trains, where to leave the station after arriving at the station, and so on. It is unrealistic for train station staff to provide one-to-one babysitting service for each passenger, but a complete sign system can resolve the problem. People participate in train travel, from entering the station to waiting for the train, when to leave the station, each link should be guided by a clear corresponding sign board. One link is linked to the other. Whether the continuity of the logic of the sign system is well done will directly affect the quality of people’s travel;
Principle 3: The layout is reasonable. If the logic is a macro level, then the layout is to look at the problem from a micro perspective. In various scenes inside and outside the train station, as long as the passengers pass by, there should be corresponding signs, and passengers have different needs when they go to a specific location, so the operator needs to lay out appropriate signage at the appropriate location to meet the actual needs of passengers in different locations. For example, at the ticket gate, now it basically automatically recognizes the ticket and passes the gate. Once the passenger successfully passes the gate, there should be a clear and accurate train guide sign, which will guide the passengers through the shortest distance to the specific pick-up location. The same is true for other locations. Passengers have different needs in each link, and the signage that needs to be laid out should naturally correspond to one of them;
Principle 4: The content is readable. The train station does not need too many artistic elements. The signboard with too many artistic elements makes people think and explore. People may not realize the emotions or intentions that the author wants to express, but the train station is impossible to do this, and it is almost impossible to give passengers a chance to think. “What you see is what you get” is the best way to present the railway station sign system. No matter when entering the station or waiting for the train, the population flow is usually concentrated in a very short time interval. The railway station sign system needs to quickly and accurately divert passengers and guide them to appropriate positions. Therefore, the content on the sign must be highly readable and recognizable, so that passengers can see it and understand in an instant.
Having said so much, whether it is a macro or micro sign, a broad or a narrow sign, they all provide services for passengers. The service object of the railway station is passengers, helping passengers to obtain a good travel experience, and helping passengers to travel safely, conveniently and quickly. Arriving at the destination is the fundamental task and goal of all services. The principles of railway station signage system design can also be said from many angles, but they all have a core principle that remains unchanged, that is, serving passengers and putting people first.
If you are looking for signage products for train station, high-speed railyway station, subway station etc, abcMIX is a good choice for you, we are a lot of ready made LED signage products for railway stations as well as enough project experience for railway station. Please contact [email protected] for more details.