Glasgow Pedestrian Wayfinding

Clear Channel & Glasgow City Council

Working with AIG, Lacock Gullam helped Adshel (Clear Channel ) to win the advertising rights in Glasgow’s city centre and West End in September 2007 with designs for a wayfinding system that reflects the city’s contemporary cultural and architectural aspirations.

The City has seen an explosion in visitor numbers – upwards of 4 million tourists now visit Glasgow annually. Tourism in the Greater Glasgow region now employs some 55,000 people and contributes nearly £1 billion to the local economy.

Understanding the importance of visitors to the continued success of tourism in the City, the Council initiated the Pedestrian Tourist Signage project, focused on improving its wayfinding provision. Existing wayfinding was poor and relied on outdated, difficult-to-maintain signs that had fallen into disuse and needed a total overhaul. The Council sought a radical, bold wayfinding system that matched its future aspirations for the City and commissioned the project through a street furniture contract permitting 300 advertising panels throughout the City.

The initial wayfinding system consisted of 80 fingerpost signs, 69 mapping panels and 76 map and information posters placed in freestanding advertising units. The scheme has been developed to allow expansion into adjacent areas of the city and be integrated with bus, subway, rail and cycling information.

The asymmetric angled faces take influence from the city’s hilly nature and juxtapose and complement the historic symmetry of the architecture and urban structure. The pedestrian map signs incorporate solar technology to provide architectural accent lighting to help the signs act as wayfinding beacons throughout the city centre. Implementation started late 2008.

The project was highly commended at the National Transport awards 2010 and won the Walking and Public Realm award at the Scottish Transport Awards 2010.