Signage system complements £120 million new university building

Bright, stimulating and creative signage first welcomes international students and then helps them easily navigate their way around the brand new £120 million state-of-the-art INTO study centre at UEA London (the London campus for the University of East Anglia).

10 August 2010 – Signbox Ltd, the award-winning and innovative architectural sign specialist, has recently completed a major project to provide a user-friendly signage system for the brand new £120 million purpose-built INTO study centre at UEA London (the London campus for the University of East Anglia). Providing a dynamic learning environment, the innovatively designed building, located close to Liverpool Street station in the heart of London’s financial district, features flexible, multi-purpose classrooms and state-of-the-art teaching facilities. The new centre now accommodates more than 1000 students studying a range of pathway courses leading to undergraduate and postgraduate level studies at UEA in Norwich and other UK universities. INTO (who operate a number of centres at other UK universities) approached Signbox to manufacture and install a wayfinding sign system for the new building to help both English and foreign students easily navigate their way throughout the new complex. Signbox worked closely with INTO’s own design team to interpret their ideas and develop them into specifications that met the desired requirements in the allocated three week time frame. To create a friendly welcome for both students and staff within the reception area, Signbox utilised its Displayedge product. The new backlit and frameless, edge-to-edge glass display case allows transparencies to be easily and safely changed without having to open or dismantle the display unit. This system also allowed INTO to reinforce its brand identity by prominently displaying the INTO UEA logo. So that students can quickly recognise the different areas of the building and locate which floor they are on, Signbox proposed a colour coded system which integrated with the rest of the décor, for example, a coloured door sign to theme with the floor. This was achieved using elements of the INTO logo in large format providing a colourful background for wayfinding decision points. Floor plans and images were then digitally printed on the reverse of acrylic panels button-fixed within the coloured area. In areas where information changes on a regular basis, Signbox used their Modular Sign System, an elegant, robust and flexible solution which features extruded interchangeable aluminium profiles. Mark Bartlett, managing director of Signbox, comments, “To animate internal areas and introduce a fun element to the signs, we also utilised a range of large format graphics, for example, a super-sized floor numeral for the lift lobby area, into the wayfinding scheme”. Bartlett continues, “With highly positive feedback from students, INTO have now conveyed to us their complete satisfaction with the outcome of the project”. For further information and to see the full range of Signbox signage solutions visit: www.signbox.co.uk. - ends -