IF articles

Summary - This article aims to offer an “overview” of the design and methodological criteria with which RFI, and before that FS, have addressed the issue of fixed message signage in railway stations in the various time phases, since the beginning. A topic once limited to a few elements (inscriptions and signs), developed over the years with the introduction of new services to customers and the attribution of interchange functions and urban polarity of the stations, to the point of constituting a real “system”. The main stages of development of fixed message signage are illustrated here, focusing on some design and methodological elements, in particular the system currently in use: from the rare historical images of the “signs” in the nineteenth-century stations, to the first consistent interventions implemented with the “circular letters” of the Works and Construction Service of 1938 and 1960; from the Technical Notebook of 1989 whose signs were inspired by road signs, to the experimentation of the Signage System of the “ Guidance handbook for the Corporate Identity project of the State Railways; from the issuance by FS and RFI in 2000 of the Manual: “Signage System”, to its most recent complete update: “Signage System -2013 revision”. 

This review, far from being exhaustive with respect to the topic covered (here we only mention graphic, optical, lighting, technological aspects), concludes with some considerations relating to the various design criteria adopted.

https://www.medra.org/servlet/view?lang=it&doi=10.57597/IF.9.2022.ART.2.