Mijksenaar

A weekend in Porto (#7)

2011

In February 2011, I was invited by ESART Politecnico of Castello Branco in Portugal to give a lecture. I had been in Lisbon once but never in Porto, a city of which I heard no one speak ill of. So my wife and me passed there on our way to Castello Branco, especially to see the famous two-level bridge across the Douro in the center of the town. Some observations I want to share below …

1. At the airport


This airport map is published in the Airport Directory of Lisbon Airport where we had a transfer. Notice the use of pictograms in green, all drawn in outline and therefore hardly recognizable and not standing out.
I always was and still am strongly against the use of outline forms, not for type and not for symbols like here. I believe that outline is a weak solution: it is neither one thing, nor the other. And suddenly at Lisbon Airport, I realized that outline is used by scary designers who fear the solid and bold forms of filled-in figures.

Earlier we discovered at my office that reversed symbols don't work properly because people recognize pictograms by their forms as ‘silhouettes’. Since we always use dark forms on a light background. Of course there are exceptions as being the designers privilege but only for good reasons.




‘Pebbles’ are our thing, the architect of Porto Airport proclaimed and so all interior and sign designers involved, created pebble-shaped maps, signs, etc.
Nevertheless, the visual sustainability is nil. The pebble hype came up some years ago but is already outdated.
Interesting is the neat way of clustering of directional elements and a you-are-here map on a slope pedestal, which provides a correct and associative point of view.




Clients are always asking for signs on the floor. Besides a continuous nightmare for the maintenance staff, surveys show that, after educating visitors to look up for signs, they will ignore signs at any other position, especially at very low positions. So they might observe floor signs from a distance, but will step over them when nearer and in crowded situations.

An aberrant but playful sign for an inconvenient message ‘restroom out of order’.


Assembly point for ‘unaccompanied minors’ ('Ummies'). And then happens what; maybe you will never see them again? The pictogram actually means ‘Missing children pick-up point’.


Neat flight information display (FID), though the information lay-out  takes quite some space. Even the airline logos come out well. A nice touch is the weather forecast for each destination, so you can buy yourself something warmer (or cooler) at one of the nearby airport shops.
In the yellow bar at the bottom, a black bullet is continuously moving from right to left, maybe to show that the screen is active.

2. To Porto


On our way to Porto. Road signs and even electricity pylons are very popular among Portuguese storks to build their nests.


Finally the famous Eiffel-style steel made ‘Don Louis I’ bridge (1886) across the Douro estuary. Not Gustave Eiffel but his one time pupil and later partner, Téophile Seyrig designed this impressive and charming two-level bridge.


Elegant neon sign on top of the Sandeman warehouses where in old times the port barrels arrived from the vineyards in small sailing boats.


Surprisingly for a Dutchman is to discover that apart from ‘Delfts Blue’, there is more to discover.




Portugal is famous for its coloured tiles which decorate housing facades. This one can be found at the Luiz Soarez Bazaar in Porto.


Typical for many Portuguese cities are these decorated mosaic pavements. Sometimes the name of the shop keeper is shown which is an interesting alternative for shop signs above the shop window.


Traffic accident statistics are relatively high in Portugal. This is how the city tries to encourage pedestrians to wait for a green light.


Bus stop signs are always a good thermometer to measure the graphic design level of a public transportation system.
This is not a bad one but not contributing much to a harmonious urban landscape.


Local stencil graffiti is always worthwhile to observe, in particular to guess its meaning. Ellen Mijksenaar thinks that this one means ‘my love is traveling with you’. There must be a place at an airport to use this good wish.


Strange associations come up, when looking at this pictogram on a shop window of an … orthodontic service.


Staircase of what is said to be the nicest bookshop on earth: Lello (1906).


To finish, an evening shot with my iPhone of the Dom Louis I bridge … Hope to come back again …