Car Park.

The Architect Nonda Katsalidis engaged graphic designer Garry Emery to ‘do something interesting’ with the signage in the underground car park in Melbourne’s Eureka Tower. Garry decided to blend the functional information of signage - instructions of what to do - with entertainment.

He identified all the residents who used the car park needed was four words - In, Out, Up, and Down. He painted them in huge letters up the wall and across the flat ground below. To the stationary or first time viewer, the letters appear as abstractions; barely letters, let alone words, let alone instructions to the visitor.

It’s only when you are in motion when the distortions align with each other and snap into place as words. As you drive your car through the space, an abstract pattern forms the word ‘Up’, informing you about where your motion will take you.

As Garry describes it, the abstractions become legible ‘at critical decision making points.’

Once your movement reveals the words, you can’t not see and read them.

Our process of good decision making sets us in motion.

It moves us through our environment, revealing hidden cues.

Like Garry’s signage, what have been incoherent abstractions, indecipherable and random, form patterns that communicate, guide, and inform our decision making.

What are distortions to the static or pedestrian, become legible to the decision maker.

What is meaningless forms patterns giving our journey both direction and meaning.