Pentagram leads Sign Design

Pentagram has scooped top honours at the Sign Design Awards, winning the Grand Prix section for its work at the National Maritime Museum. The awards presentation takes place on 3 November at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.

Sign Design Society chairman Barry Gray describes Pentagram’s design as “clean and uncluttered with excellent detailing. We were impressed by the simplicity and form of the designs, which cleverly reflect the theme of the museum”.

The winners’ list has an international flavour, with Berlin consultancy MetaDesign lifting top prize in the Designers category for its project at Zeche Zollverein, a German industrial heritage site in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The student award goes to Reading university students Wendy Wilsher and Lorna Thompson, who designed signage for a residential centre for young people with Batons Disease.

Tactile signs accompanied locational signs, with a sponge denoting the bathroom and raised wavy lines for the swimming pool.

In the Special Needs category, judges commented that they were “especially concerned by how few examples of signing for people with special needs had been entered”.

Assorted Images eventually won the Special Needs award for its work at the Diana, Princess of Wales Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, having originally entered the Designers category.

Anderson Design & Marketing was awarded the Manufacturers prize for signage at O2, the complex on London’s Finchley Road.