GLS University

GLS University in Ahmedabad brings together a number of institutes that were founded separately and had each built their own identity over the years. From the inside that history makes sense. To a parent visiting on admission day, it reads as many organisations sharing one address.

I studied at GLS Institute of Design for four years, so I knew which parts of the campus confused people. That was useful and also a risk, because I had long since stopped noticing what a newcomer would.

The main audience was not the faculty, who already know the place. It was the people who arrive once: prospective students, their families, visiting examiners and delivery staff. I walked the main routes from each gate to each institute and noted every point where someone would have to make a decision. The signage was planned from that list before the identity was finished, so the identity had to fit how signs are actually read.

• One mark for the university, with each institute named in type rather than given its own symbol. Families remember one mark.
• A single colour ramp instead of a palette of unrelated colours, so each institute has its own colour and still looks part of one place.
• A wide, heavy typeface for signs, chosen for legibility at a distance and at an angle, and a plainer face for anything read up close.

I would have tested the signage at night much earlier. Some of the most important journeys on a campus happen after dark.