Archive Objects In Focus: Barbican Signs

The Barbican's iconic visual identity and signage system, designed by Ken Briggs & Associates in 1982, is a key part of the Centre's history.

They were the first attempt to make sense of the Barbican's architecture for visitors.

The original design utilised pictograms to help with wayfinding.

The building can be complicated to understand - you can arrive from a range of entrances on different levels, and the Centre is built deep into the ground.

In the Archive we have started collecting pieces of signage from the Centre, to keep a record of how the building has changed. Paper plans and documents tell some of the story, but physical objects can help bring them alive and deepen our understanding of how it all worked.

This directional arrow is from the original Barbican signage, designed by Ken Briggs and Associates, and removed as part of a redesign.

On the back, you can see the bits of the building it took with it.

This sign for Door 8 of the Hall comes from two decades later.

It was installed as part of a redesign by the architects AHMM and the branding agency Lloyd Northover Citigate (LNC).

It gives a sense of how materials like dark brass -- a reference to the Barbican's original fittings -- and the newer orange branding interact, and how the sign was illuminated from the back to aid visibility.

This sign was rescued from the Barbican Estate podium in 2020, when the wayfinding system was updated.

The signs include the Barbican's flattened-circle logo from the early Noughties. Designed by LNC, it represents a spotlight landing on a stage

or maybe the shape of Frobisher Crescent seen from above.