A Signage Challenge: Visibility and Representation of the Territory

Signage can be considered as a paradoxical mode of visual communication: although intended for our eyes, it seems currently designed not to be seen or at least not to overly solicit our powers of perception, so as to fulfill its primary mission of information. In this perspective, it is part of an approach to graphic design developed, for example, by typographer Beatrice Warde through her theory of the “invisible page”. To question this position, this article will focus on the “signage for cultural and tourist animation” deployed on French highways. Giving prominence to images, the design of these “brown signs” is entrusted to renowned graphic artists who are invited to demonstrate their creativity. Taking a completely different approach than other national road signage, they constitute a way of promoting the areas served by the highway which doesn’t fall under the “territorial brand” (Almeida & Almeida) or “signage as marketing communication” (Kellaris & Machleit) models. As a result of the ban on all forms of advertising on highways, the “brown signs” represent a way of enhancing public space that seems to invite us to rethink the “sense of place” dear to John Brinckerhoff Jackson through extensive use of “connotation” (Barthes). In doing so, their designs constitute a graphic compromise between considerations relating to all signage systems and the will to promote a given space. It is therefore fruitful to study their evolution (in terms of “hardware”, “graphic” or “content information” systems) in relation to the “signage pyramid” model developed by Calori and Vanden-Eynden.