ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act. This legislation was enacted by the federal government in 1991 to remove barriers that limit an individual’s ability to function in the physical environment. Title III of the ADA deals with signs.

Bid Specifications
Documents containing general conditions and “boilerplate” language needed for competitive bidding. These documents typically describe the design intent as well as fabrication techniques, materials, and installation methods, and include formal bidding forms and instructions.

Brand
A symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a product, company or place, and serves to create associations and expectations around it. A Brand Identity is not a logo alone, but the collective look and feel of your organization’s communications materials. This often includes a logo, fonts, color schemes, patterns, photo style, symbols, and even sound, which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. A Brand Image however, is much broader as it is the collective perception, planned or incidental, of a product, company or place and is the result of every interaction a user has with that product or company or place. This includes interactions with the people, environment, materials, and messages associated with the product, company or place.

The best brands invoke positive emotions or experiences and have adequately aligned perception, reality and organizational goals. This is done through deliberate planning, marketing, and culturing of what you want your brand experience to be. If you don’t control the perception, it will happen to you anyway.

Brands, “branding” and brand equity have become increasingly important components of culture and the economy, now being described as “cultural accessories and personal philosophies”.

Branded Environment
Creating a fully integrated environment, typically interior, that is reflective of the organization’s core brand essence and values

Cradle-to-Cradle*
a design philosophy put forth by architect William McDonough that considers the life-cycle of a material or product, and ensures that the product is completely recycled at the end of its defined lifetime

Corporate Responsibility*
the degree to which companies manage business practices to produce an overall positive impact on society

Corporate Social Responsibility*
the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workplace as well as the local community and society at large; a company’s obligation to be accountable to all of its stakeholders in all its operations and activities (including financial stakeholders as well as suppliers, customers, and employees) with the aim of achieving sustainable development not only in the economic dimension but also in the social and environmental dimensions

Dematerialization*
the reduction of total materials used in providing customers with products or services

Design Intent Drawings
Drawings that show the size, profile, dimensions and basic relationship of parts (including custom symbols, typography and color palette). These drawings are usually provided as part of the bid package from which the selected fabricator develops shop drawings and/or prototypes to define and confirm specific design and engineering details.

Eco-friendly*
a product, practice, or process that is “green” or good for the environment, creating no unnecessary or hazardous waste and minimizing use of non-renewable, natural resources

Environmental Graphic Design
A design profession embracing many design disciplines including graphic design, architecture, industrial design and landscape architecture. Practitioners in this field are concerned with the visual aspects of wayfinding, communicating identity and brands, information design, and shaping a sense of place.

Some examples of work produced by environmental graphic designers include the design and planning of sign programs, wayfinding consulting, exhibit and interpretive design, entertainment environments, retail design, information design including maps, as well as memorial and donor recognition programs.

The word environmental bears no relationship to the natural environment nor environmental engineering. Environmental, as opposed to conventional, graphic design refers to the three-dimensional world and the practice of design in a 3D versus 2D realm.

Environmental Graphics
Graphics that may incorporate architectural elements to help create a sense of place and spatial organization

Grade 1 Braille
A Braille format that includes only the letters of the alphabet, numbers and a few punctuation marks.

Grade 2 Braille
Grade 2 Braille includes more characters and character combinations representing contractions of certain words and word components such as “the” and “ation.” Care must be taken to translate Grade 2 Braille correctly, using a computer-based or other translation program. A qualified Braille proofreader must approve all final artwork.

Green Building*
a comprehensive process of design and construction that employs techniques to minimize adverse environmental impacts and reduce the energy consumption of a building, while contributing to the health and productivity of its occupants; a common metric for evaluating green buildings is the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification

Green Design*
the design of products, services, buildings, or experiences that are sensitive to environmental issues and achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in terms of energy and materials use

Interpretive
Using graphics, images and words to tell stories, often historical or educational in nature, that help users understand and relate to their environement

Key Messages
These are the primary messages you wish to communicate to your audience. We suggest 2-4 statements that all employees can process, internalize, and communicate in their own words.

LEED^® Certification*
an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design sponsored by the United States Green Building Council that creates standards for developing high performance, sustainable buildings; LEED AP is the designation for Accredited Professionals who have passed the test for LEED understanding and knowledge

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)*
a process of evaluating the effects of a product or its designated function on the environment over the entire period of the product’s life in order to increase resource-use efficiency and decrease liabilities; commonly referred to as “cradle-to-grave” analysis

Mission Statement
Specifies the organization’s purpose or reason for being. It is the target at which all plans and programs should be aimed.

Pantone^®
A widely-used color matching system designed to ensure that colors will be consistent whether viewed on-screen or in output from a printer. Many image editing and illustration programs allow you to specify a color by its Pantone Matching System (PMS) number.

Placemaking
Using all of the tools at an environmental graphic designers disposal – type, graphics, images, architectural enhancements, landscaping, etc – to create a fully integrated environment that has a specific look and feel as a place

Positioning Statement
a forward-looking statement that succinctly defines how your organization wants to be positioned in the marketplace. It should be an honest reflection of who you are today, but with short-term attainable aspirations. Therefore a positioning statement describes how you wish to be perceived and what you intend to do to create and maintain it. This statement is for internal use only to assist in communicating with various publics and is brought to life by the entire firm through day-today activities. The more the firm embodies this statement, the greater its power and resonance.

Programming
Serves as a road map for the project. This document includes a review of requirements for recommended sign types, wayfinding concepts, a preliminary destination list, preliminary public circulation patterns, recommendations for applying the brand identity to signage, a review of applicable codes, a definition of system issues and objectives, and preliminary design concepts.

Regulatory Signs
Signs installed by or under the requirement of government bodies to inform the public of laws and other regulations, and regulate vehicular traffic.

Shop Drawings
Drawings prepared by trades to describe the quantity, shape, size, materials and other details of a product’s construction. In signage, it refers to drawings prepared by fabricators describing their intended methods of construction and sequence of assembly to be reviewed by designer and owner for approval prior to construction and fabrication. Shop drawings help assure that the original design concept is accurately carried out in the construction process.

Sign Location Plan
Usually a site plan or floor plan indicating where signs will be placed or located.

Sign Type Hierarchy
Defines the style or use of each unique sign component in a system. Sign types are individually determined in each sign project. Sign type descriptions include the following: building identification, directory, directional or guide sign, freestanding, monument, pedestrian directional, pedestrian informational, post and panel, regulatory, vehicular directional, elevator directory, and room identifier.

Signage Standards Manual
More detailed than a signage reference manual, this is a compilation of the drawings and specifications for each sign type, together with descriptions of the sign type’s purpose and the situations in which it might be used. A signage standards manual also includes information on the overall wayfinding program such as the wayfinding methodology, graphic standards and the information hierarchy used.

Strategic Philanthropy*
a corporate philanthropy or community giving program that maximizes positive impact in the community as well as for the company, including bolstered employee recruitment, retention and a stronger company brand

Sustainability*
the successful meeting of present social, economic, and environmental needs without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs; derived from the most common definition of sustainability, created in 1987 at the World Commission on Environment and Development

Sustainable Design*
a process of product, service, or organizational design that complies with the principles of social, economic, and environmental sustainability

Sustainable Development*
development that utilizes tools, supplies and strategies that protect and enhance the earth’s natural resources and diverse eco-systems so as to meet the social and economic needs of the present without compromising the ability to meet the needs of the future

Tagline
A short phrase summarizing either what you do, who you do it for, or what you stand for. The Tagline is used in tangent with the logo and may be incorporated into the Key Messages.

Triple Bottom Line*
an expansion of the traditional company reporting framework of net financial gains or losses to take into account environmental and social performance; see People, Planet, Profit

United States Business Council on Sustainable Development (USBCSD)*
a non-profit organization promoting sustainable development by establishing networks and partnerships between American companies and government entities; the USBCSD provides a voice for industry and is the U.S. branch of the World Business Council of Sustainable Development

Wayfinding
The process of using spatial and environmental cues to navigate through an environment. In its most literal sense, wayfinding is the ability of a person to find his or her way to a destination. It can also be defined from the standpoint of the designer or site owner and operator seeking to improve the function of a particular environment. Wayfinding is not separate from traditional signage design, but is a broader, more inclusive way of assessing all the environmental issues that affect our ability to find our way.

*These terms have been used with permission from our partner BrownFlynn.