I was commissioned by the Canadian Wildlife Service to help redesign a pair of behavioural signs to educate visitors to Piping Plover nesting habitat. I jumped at the chance; those little birds are dear to my heart.
Welcome / Informational Sign
This sign is intended for the trailhead or the parking lot. The idea is that the visitor encounters this information well before they get close to the actual nesting site. Here’s the original:
My feeling is that this sign was too cluttered and wordy for a parking lot or trailhead sign; people have places to go and washrooms to visit at this point in their day. We needed to get the information out simply, in a more visually accessible way. Here’s what I proposed:
The Second Sign
Here is the original sign that they posted very close to the actual nests; the idea here is to keep the reader far away. My feeling was that if you were close enough to read that bottom text, you were already too close.
My Revision
My goal here was to make the signs more readable, more appealing, and more interpretive.
What do you think?
Did I succeed in my goal? Let me know in the comments.