OUGD404 - Studio Brief 1 Icons, Symbols and Logos

Today we were given a short talk by John about symbols and icons, then we were split into groups and asked to re-design the fire exit sign - a sign that has been accepted globally and everyone knows what it already means.

Our group firstly started with deciding on a colour. We made a list of colours that could be considered, then made comments about them, about what they connotate and what we associate with that colour. 

Green (the current sign colour) - Safety, life, freshness
Red - STOP, danger, run, hot
Blue - Calm, cold, water
Yellow - Happy, joyful, scared, bright, warm

We decided that a turquoise would be the best sort of colour that we were looking for. We thought that it gives off a feeling of calmness, as people need to be calm (and not run) during a fire. It would also be visible during a fire, especially when lit. We also decided that instead of calling it a fire exit, we would call it a safety exit, as to ensure that people are headed to safety and they don't need to rush. We came up with a rough few ideas on paper:

Then we decided to move our final idea over to Illustrator to show off the colours and a sans serif typeface, and this was our outcome:

I think this design turned out really well, and it has calm connotations. It takes ideas from the original design (with the door), so people are aware of what it means, and people can follow the instructions given by the sign easily.