Joe's Information design Blog: Critique of a Public Space Open Forum

As I have said in the past that I like the more visual side of information design I thought it would be interesting to look at this in the real world. I thought about airports, bus stations and other public places like this but I decided that most of us are familiar with and don’t even think about out local retail stores.

I chose Wal-Mart for this blog post. The store is a great example of information design at work.

Wal-Mart has been using this design concept for a long time and it is still working well.

One of the first things people will notice about this design concept is that it uses mostly the same colors through- out the store both inside and out. The blue background behind the yellow logo is usually all we need to know we are looking at a Wal-Mart store.

These colors tend to clash allowing the viewer to instantly recognize the logo. However at the same time these colors also complement one another making it pleasant to look at. Because the colors are the way they are the store continues the use of the two colors all over their store both for you and for themselves. Keeping the color pattern uniform through- out the store make finding your way around much simpler and easy and are coupled with the use of type and symbols such as arrows.

Anywhere you see these colors together in the store you know that there is information for you to see, by making this information easy to see and find the store can easily tell you what it wants you to know and shows you what it wants you to see. So not only does this concept work for you as the viewer of information it also works for the store as a marketing tool. This is what is thought of as integrated design. Along with a splash of color (Usually red, white or black) it is easy to lure you toward what they need to show you. These are also the same colors used to help you find your way around in the store. For example all of the isles are numbered and particular products are listed that are included in that isle. As I said I am a visual person and I am going to let the images do the rest of the talking here. As you look at them think about your own experiences in the store.