Thanks for your proofs; but now can you make the signs tactile and Braille...?

....let's be honest; this is a question that most signage companies dread

You've already invested a lot of time with your customer agreeing the colours, the text and overall design for their signs and then the requirements of the D.D.A / Equalities Act 2010 can often be thrown into the mix at the eleventh hour, so what do you do? Well most people contact a specialist D.D.A signage company like Architectural Symbols & Signs for help.

Architectural Symbols & Signs is a preferred signage supplier to the RNIB. The company supplies both end clients and the trade with accessible way finding signage and most importantly the team at Architectural Symbols & Signs offers sound advice. They have been trading since 2003, both manufacturing the signs and also performing D.D.A signage audits for those customers who need some help deciding what signage they need.

Customers include Her Majesty's Court Service (HMCS); after being specified as the preferred supplier by ATKINS, which manages the properties on behalf of HMCS. Architectural Symbols & Signs offers a full service to HMCS / Atkins - performing the initial signage audit often with the Court Manager, agreeing specifications and locations, etc. They then manufacture the signs and deliver them to site and supervise installation, which is performed by an external contracting company that has tendered for the work. The formula works for all involved and has resulted in excess of 30 Crown / County and Magistrates Courts being signed over the last five years.

Other end client projects have included signing council administration buildings, leisure centres, theatres (such as the Theatre of Light at Andover); nature reserves; several Housing Associations (Gloucester City Homes, High Peak Housing and Severn Vale Housing). Architectural Symbols & Signs has worked closely with organisations like Mencap (providing Widgit and Tactile & Braille signage at Lufton College in Somerset); and Shelter - the homeless and housing charity.

Trade customers make up about 50% of the company's business and they have helped to provide signage solutions for all types of buildings and customers. Notable examples include aftermarket 100% transparent Braille strips on ATMs for Santander; internal tactile and Braille signage for Gloucester Quays shopping centre and tactile signage for the Supreme Court in London. Architectural Symbols & Signs also exports its signs to trade suppliers in Ireland, Australia, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, USA and even for a small job in a hotel in Africa c/o an Italian architect.

Colin Bruton (Director from Architectural Symbols & Signs) explains some of the different terminology that is used and the main principles to consider when designing and installing this type of signage; especially when the architect/designer mentions that you as the sign maker is responsible for ensuring the signs are D.D.A compliant (which is a very ambiguous statement):

Tactile

This normally means raised letters. The idea is that people can feel and read the text with the pad of the finger and the letters should be raised and not recessed; so conventional engraving isn't suitable. The minimum capital height of a tactile letter is 18mm, any smaller and they can't be read by the finger so would be pointless being tactile. Extra spacing between letters makes the signs easier to read.

Braille

A form of communication that is read with the fingers, each cell of Braille can have up to six raised dots. Letters/words/numbers are made up depending where the dots are located within each cell. Text can be transcribed into Grade 1 (each letter of the word is represented by a complete cell); or Grade 2 Braille (where contractions of words are used to shorten the message). Braille is a very bulky form of communication; if you had one A4 page full of ordinary text, this might transcribe into 2.5 pages of Braille.

A lot of signage companies bought machines to produce Braille, using acrylic balls that must be glued into place. After seeing various examples of this type of signage we discover that quite often the Braille is transcribed incorrectly because standard software like Adobe Illustrator doesn't understand the rules of Braille; such as adding the numeral Braille sign before some text to convert words to numbers; and back again to text; so be careful where you buy your signs from.

Because of the size of tactile text and the bulk of Braille, you have to design the signs in a completely different way. Vinyl signs can be shrunk to fit the available space but you can't do that with tactile and Braille signage, so the proposed text needs to be agreed before you can size the signs and a lot more design time is needed.

Clear signage well located

Try and ensure you have good colour contrast between the base of the sign and the door or wall where it will be located, and good colour contrast between the text and the base of the sign. Also ensure both the base and the letters are made from matt materials that aren't reflective. Clear concise signage benefits everybody, not just people who have some form of visual impairment.

Try and develop a consistency of location for the signs. This is especially important for Braille readers; if intended users don't know where to locate them, then they aren't very useful. This is why we designed Braille finger push plate for doors at Architectural Symbols & Signs.

The heights of the signs are important, 1400mm - 1700mm (55 - 67 inches) from the ground is a height that is often referred to; although anything that is located above 1200mm (47 inches) isn't much use for a wheelchair user.

When designing directories ensure that all the messages/ locations that are pointing to the left are dressed to the left after a suitable ISO arrow, and all the messages that are pointing to the right are dressed to the right in front of a suitable ISO arrow. We have all been in public buildings and stood confused in front of directories that have small triangles as arrows.

Moon signage

Another form of communication altogether that most people haven't heard of, Moon allows people who are blind or partially sighted to read by touch. It is a code of raised shapes and takes its name from its blind English inventor, Dr William Moon. As the characters are fairly large and more than half the letters bear a strong resemblance to the print equivalent, Moon has been found particularly suitable for those who lose their sight later in life, or for people who may have a less keen sense of touch.

Whereas Braille is made up of patterns of dots, Moon uses lines and curves, similar to print, to create nine basic shapes. Rotating or reflecting these shapes in different ways creates the 26 letters of the alphabet. Adding a few dots for punctuation marks and a numeral sign completes Grade 1 Moon, which can be used to provide a tactile version of any text. When Dr Moon invented his system in 1845, Braille had been invented 16 years before but had not reached this country from France, and Moon was well established by the time Braille was taken up. Moon has remained an indispensable alternative ever since including use within RNIB Schools.

Makaton and Widgit symbols

These are used extensively throughout schools to assist with learning and are being specified a great deal more now within mainstream buildings such as leisure centres, colleges, council buildings, and the like.

Makaton Symbols have been specially designed. Most of them are black and white pictures illustrating the important meaning of the words we use. Children and adults who cannot read or write can now have, for example: stories, instructions to carry out tasks, timetable events, shopping lists, letters and messages, all written in symbols.

The Widgit Literacy symbols (previously known as Rebus) have developed over the past 20 years and are used in many countries worldwide. The symbols are clean, concise and suitable for all ages. They too have been carefully designed to illustrate a single concept without adding unnecessary information such as gender. There are more than 7000 images in both colour and black and white covering a vocabulary in excess of 20,000 words.

Colin says "There's a lot of information to digest and a lot of different systems that can come under the umbrella of 'Accessible Signage'. Architects and designers often need a lot of support and help when including this type of signage into their buildings so if you need some advice and help please contact an expert supplier, such as Architectural Symbols & Signs."

For further information, contact Architectural Symbols & Signs Ltd via website www.braille-signs.co.uk or telephone 01922 454656. Walsall Society for the blind's website is www.walsallblind.org