London Wildlife Trust

London Wildlife Trust manages 36 nature reserves, and is a driving force for nature conservation across the capital. Their vision is a London alive with nature, where everyone can experience and enjoy wildlife.

We were appointed to develop a new wayfinding strategy and create signage guidelines to be rolled out across their nature reserves.

Collaborating with communications and operational teams, we carried out comprehensive audits to understand the visitor experience and brand assets to establish user journeys, information hierarchy, wayfinding principles and to formulate the objectives.


The new designs needed to:

  • Reflect the values and vision, increasing brand presence

  • Improve visitor experience by being intuitive and efficient

  • Encourage exploration and connect people to the wildlife

  • Be accessible and inclusive and have a positive emphasis

  • Have a cohesive look and feel with a consistent visual language

  • Be sustainable with a material palette befitting of a nature reserve

  • Incorporate partnership recognition

  • Integrate CTAs to educate and drive membership

 

We created a suite of designs and iconography with a modular system for flexibility across varying touchpoints and site conditions.

Using colours from the brand palette to subtly differentiate sign types whilst maintaining a consistent visual language, a clear and positive tone of voice was applied across the sign family.

Modularity ensured interpretation and information can be adapted to suit different orientations, and seamlessly integrate photography, maps and info graphics.

 

Walthamstow Wetlands was selected as the benchmark site for implementation. It is Europe’s largest urban wetland nature reserve. Home to an abundance of wildlife, rich industrial heritage, and an important working nature reservoir complex for Thames Water.

It is part of the Walthamstow Reservoirs Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the Lee Valley Special Protection Area, Ramsar site of international importance, and Lee Valley Walthamstow Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation.

For this scheme we designed maps with bespoke iconography, wayfinding finger posts, distance markers, interpretation signs, information points and enforcement signs.

We built in walking distances and time indicators to encourage exploration, offering alternative routes to allow for seasonal path closures.

 

The interpretation and welcome signs incorporated photography from local wildlife experts and volunteers, as well as QR codes linking to further information.

Prior to production we carried out on site legibility tests as well as prototyping the materials and test prints for colour matching.

In addition to the design and strategy work we fully project managed the implementation carrying out quality control checks throughout.

London Wildlife Trust are committed to providing excellence when it comes to visitor experience and the new signage will be rolled out over the coming months.

Read more about their incredible work and help protect London’s wildlife here:
https://www.wildlondon.org.uk