Negotiated Production: Michael Faraday School

Cartlidge Levene worked with Michael Faraday School to produce a new wayfinding system for the building. The school is located in Southwark, London. It is in an urban setting, whose demographic rating puts it among the lowest categories in terms of deprivation and ‘inner city adversity’.

Cartlidge Levene was given the brief to develop a wayfinding system that would engage children and make the children, staff and parents feel a pride in their school. Playful, colourful designs have therefore been adopted to create a fun, relaxed space for children and adults to enjoy. The new visual language is so much different than in any school that I have seen and I know I would have enjoyed it at a younger age. The new graphic identity is new and inviting, yet also works well alongside the Faraday logo that can be seen above the main entrance.

The layout includes a continuous row of year group classrooms, which form around a circular space that stretches two levels. Flag signs of different colours fold outward to display the identity of each of these year groups. There is also a "flexible learning space", which has been named the Living Room, positioned in the centre of the school. Classrooms for year groups one to six are arranged around it. The Living Room is made up of a bright yellow wall, which looks wholly unique and interesting and gives the children a relaxed space to unwind in.

A paperchain of male and female toilet logos are clearly displayed across a wall to mark the presence of the toilets. This brought me back to my previous blog post, where a similar technique is used, only with wallpaper patterns.