Wayfinding signs in Dubai: directional, door and interior signs

What wayfinding signs are, and the four kinds

Wayfinding signs are the signs that guide a visitor from the entrance to a destination. Every system is built from four kinds: identification signs that name a place, directional signs that point the way, information signs that explain, and regulatory signs that tell people what they must or must not do.

A visitor uses them in sequence. The directory tells them the clinic is on level 3. Directional signs take them to the lifts and then along the corridor. An identification sign on the door confirms they've arrived. If any link in that chain is missing or uses a different name, people stop and ask.

Fire exit and emergency signs are part of the regulatory group, but they follow Civil Defence rules of their own. We cover them on our exit signs and safety signs pages.

For touch-screen directories and interactive wayfinding, see digital kiosks and totems.

Wayfinding and interior signs we make

We make every sign a building needs inside and around it: directories, directional and arrow signs, door and room signs, name plates and plaques, lit interior signs, hanging and projecting signs, aisle signs, floor and lift signs, and outdoor and car park signs. Most projects use several of these as one matching family.

Directories

A directory lists who or what is in the building and where. A lobby directory covers the whole building by floor; a floor directory at the lift lobby covers that level. For buildings where tenants change, we make directories with slide-in or magnetic strips so one line can be replaced without remaking the board. Large buildings may suit a screen directory, covered below.

Directional and arrow signs

Wall-mounted or hanging signs with arrows and destination names, placed where people must choose a direction. They carry a short list of destinations, each with an arrow, in Arabic and English. We make them as flat panels, as raised letters on a panel, or as lit signs for dim corridors and car parks.

Door and room signs

Signs beside or on a door that name the room: meeting rooms, offices, departments, consulting rooms, toilets, prayer rooms, stores and plant rooms. Common formats are a flat plate, a plate on stand-offs, a curved aluminium frame with a paper or printed insert, and a sliding "free/in use" sign for meeting rooms. Toilet, prayer room and accessible facilities use standard pictograms so they're understood in any language.

Name plates and plaques

Door name plates and desk name plates show a person's name and title. For offices where staff move, we recommend a holder with a changeable insert, so a new name costs a printed strip, not a new sign. Plaques are heavier, permanent pieces in brass, stainless steel, acrylic or stone: company plaques at an entrance, opening and dedication plaques, award and donor plaques, and building name plaques. For villa plaques, see house signs.

Lit interior signs

Illuminated signs for places where a flat plate would be missed:

• Lit arrow signs for car parks, entrances, drive-throughs and long corridors.
• Lit toilet and facility signs, usually projecting from the wall so they're seen along a corridor.
• Lit door and office signs, such as an edge-lit acrylic name sign or a small light box beside a door.
• Indoor LED signs and logo signs for receptions and shop interiors. See 3D letter signs for reception logos and LED signs for lit interior signs.

Lit signs run on low-voltage LEDs and need a power point or a driver nearby, so they're best planned before the ceiling and walls are closed.

Hanging and projecting signs

A sign fixed flat to a wall can't be seen by someone walking along that wall. Hanging signs from the ceiling and projecting signs at right angles to the wall solve this in corridors, malls, hospitals and car parks. Dubai's design code asks for at least 2,200 mm of clear headroom under any sign over a walking route, which sets the lowest point of a hanging sign.

Aisle and department signs

Supermarkets, pharmacies, hardware stores and warehouses use hanging aisle signs with a number and a short list of what's in the aisle, and larger department signs above each section. We make them double-sided, light in weight, and with changeable panels where the layout changes with the season.

Floor, lift and stair signs

Floor numbers at each lift lobby and stair landing, "you are here" plans, and stair identification signs. These are small, but they're the signs people rely on when a lift opens on an unfamiliar floor.

Outdoor and car park signs

Site entrance signs, building identification, post-mounted directional signs, parking bay and level signs, height restriction and pedestrian route signs. Larger outdoor structures are covered on our pylon and totem signs page.

How many signs do you need? Planning the system

You need a sign at every point where a first-time visitor has to make a decision, plus one at every destination. The reliable way to count them is to walk each route from each entrance, as a stranger would, and mark every junction, lift lobby, stair and door on a floor plan.

The walk-the-route method

1. List the entrances. Main door, car park lifts, side and staff entrances. Each is a starting point.
2. List the destinations. Reception, each tenant or department, meeting rooms, toilets, prayer rooms, lifts, stairs, exits, parking.
3. Walk each route from each entrance to each main destination, and mark every decision point: a corridor that splits, a lift lobby, a stair, a set of doors.
4. Put a directional sign at each decision point, facing the direction people arrive from.
5. Add a confirmation on long routes. Dubai's design code asks for orientation signs to exits, toilets and other services at corridor intersections, at least every 30 metres inside buildings.
6. Put an identification sign at each destination. The same code says door frames should carry information about the service in the room.
7. Add a directory in the entrance hall and, on larger floors, at each lift lobby. The code asks business and administration buildings to show the building name on the facade and provide a directory in the hall.

A US planning guide puts the placement rule well: a sign between decisions is ignored, and a missing sign at a junction is where people get lost (4over4).

How much to put on each sign

Keep each directional sign short. The same guide suggests three to five destinations per sign as a practical ceiling, because people read directional signs while walking. If a junction serves more than that, group destinations ("Meeting rooms 1–8", "Clinics A–F") or list only the main ones and let the next sign give the detail.

A worked count

These are illustrations of how the numbers add up, not quotes.

An office floor of about 1,000 m² with a reception, 12 meeting rooms, 20 private offices, two toilet blocks, a pantry, a prayer room and four service rooms:

• 1 reception logo sign and 1 floor directory
• 4 to 6 directional signs at the lift lobby and corridor junctions
• 12 meeting room signs
• 20 office name plates
• 8 to 10 facility and service room signs
• Fire exit and safety signs as the fire plan requires

That's roughly 45 to 50 signs, most of them small door signs.

A clinic of about 400 m² with reception, six consulting rooms, a laboratory, X-ray, pharmacy, waiting areas and toilets needs fewer signs but larger ones: 1 reception sign, 1 directory, 3 or 4 directional signs, about 15 room signs and 2 or 3 projecting signs for toilets and the pharmacy.

The sign schedule

The output of planning is a sign schedule: a numbered list of every sign with its location on the plan, type, size, wording in both languages, arrow direction and fixing. It's the document that lets you check every word before anything is made, and it makes quotes from different suppliers comparable. We prepare one for every project of more than a few signs.

Letter size, height and placement

Lettering has to be sized for the distance it's read from. The Dubai Universal Design Code gives minimum and recommended character heights by reading distance: 14 mm minimum and 28 mm recommended at 1 metre, rising to 70 mm and 140 mm at 5 metres, and 140 mm and 180 mm at 20 metres.

Source: Dubai Universal Design Code, as published by Trakhees. Check the current edition for your project, because codes are revised.

Many interior signs fall short of this. A door plate with 8 mm lettering is readable only when you're standing at the door, which is fine for a person's job title but not for the room number someone is scanning the corridor for. A practical approach is to size the main word or number for the corridor and the secondary line for the door.

Height and position

• Door and room signs. Fix them on the wall beside the door, on the handle side, so they're visible when the door is open. The Dubai code sets the centre of raised tactile signs at 1,500 mm above the floor, and that's a sensible centre line for all door signs, so they line up along a corridor.
• Directional wall signs. Around eye level, with the centre between about 1,400 and 1,700 mm, in clear view of someone arriving at the junction.
• Hanging and projecting signs. At least 2,200 mm clear below the sign over walking routes, as the code requires.
• Directories and maps. The code sets wall-mounted tactile maps with their centre between 1,250 and 1,750 mm above the floor, near the main entrance. A directory should stand where people can stop and read without blocking the door.
• Consistency. Put the same kind of sign in the same position every time. People learn where to look after the first two signs.

Contrast, finish and type

The Dubai code asks for letters, numbers and symbols that are glare-free and in high contrast with their background, and gives a figure of at least 50 points of light reflectance difference for directional signs. In practice that means dark lettering on a light plate or light on dark, matte finishes, and no lettering on bare mirror steel or clear glass without a backing.

For type, use a clear sans-serif in a medium weight, in upper and lower case for names and destinations. Avoid condensed and thin fonts, and keep to one typeface family in each language.

Accessible signs: tactile, braille and pictograms

Accessible signs let people with low vision or no vision read a sign by touch as well as by sight. The Dubai Universal Design Code asks for information in at least two of three channels (visual, tactile and sound), and sets rules for raised lettering used to identify rooms and spaces.

What the code says about raised ("high embossment") signs, in summary:

• Letters, numbers, symbols and pictograms raised by at least 0.8 mm.
• Raised characters between 16 and 50 mm high, in capitals.
• Raised, not engraved. Engraved lettering can't be read by touch.
• Short messages only: a room number, a floor number, a toilet symbol.
• Mounted with the centre 1,500 mm above the floor, within 25 mm.
• Symbols at least 30 mm high.

The code describes braille as good practice to include alongside raised characters. See the code's page on high embossment and braille, and confirm the current requirements with your consultant or the authority for your project, because free zones and building types differ.

Where tactile signs matter most

Toilets and accessible toilets, lifts and floor numbers, stairs, room numbers in hotels, clinics and public buildings, and the tactile map at the entrance of larger public buildings. The code places that map near the main entrance door and limits a fixed horizontal tactile map to 800 × 450 mm, with text of at least 20 mm.

Pictograms

Standard symbols for toilets, lifts, stairs, prayer rooms, parking, accessible routes and baby changing are understood by people who read neither Arabic nor English, which in Dubai is a large share of visitors. Use one consistent set across the building, large enough to read at the same distance as the text.

What we make

We make tactile and braille signs in-house: raised characters and pictograms with braille on a matte, contrasting plate, in Arabic and English. If your consultant has specified a standard, send us the specification and we'll make to it.

Arabic and English on wayfinding signs

Wayfinding signs in Dubai are normally bilingual, with Arabic and English given equal weight. The layout needs a little care, because Arabic reads from right to left and English from left to right, and arrows have to work for both.

• Layout. Either Arabic above English on each line, or Arabic on the right and English on the left with the arrow or pictogram between or beside them. Choose one layout and keep it on every sign.
• Arrows. Put the arrow on the side it points to: left-pointing arrows at the left edge, right-pointing arrows at the right edge. Both readers then meet the arrow where they expect it. Straight-ahead arrows usually go on the side nearest the route.
• Order of destinations. Group by direction: straight ahead first, then left, then right. Keep the same order on every sign.
• Names. Decide each room and department name once, in both languages, and use exactly that wording on the directory, the directional signs and the door. "Radiology" on one sign and "X-Ray" on the next sends people back to reception.
• Numbers. Western numerals (1, 2, 3) are standard on wayfinding signs here and are read by both audiences. Add Arabic-Indic numerals only if your brand or authority asks for them.
• Visual balance. Arabic set at the same nominal size often looks smaller than English, so we balance the two by eye.
• Checking. Have a native reader check the Arabic on the sign schedule before production. Translation software and design software both make mistakes with Arabic letter joins and direction.

Road and public-realm signs follow RTA specifications of their own. For signs inside your plot and building, the layout is yours to set, within your landlord's or authority's guidelines.

Materials, finishes and fixings

Most interior wayfinding signs are made from acrylic, aluminium or stainless steel, with printed, vinyl or raised lettering. The right choice depends on the look of the interior, how often the wording will change, and whether the sign is indoors or out.

Lettering

• Printed (UV print) directly onto the plate: full colour, economical, good for logos.
• Cut vinyl: crisp single colours, easy to replace.
• Engraved and paint-filled: hard-wearing, classic for brass and steel plaques.
• Raised letters: cut acrylic or metal fixed to the plate, for a more finished look and for tactile signs.

Making signs changeable

Names and tenants change, so decide at the start which parts of each sign must be easy to update.

• Slide-in inserts behind a clear cover: change a name with a printed strip.
• Modular directories with one strip per tenant.
• Magnetic or clip-on faces over a fixed back plate.
• Vinyl lettering on a plain plate, which can be peeled and replaced.

A fixed engraved plate looks best and lasts longest, but every change means a new plate. For offices with regular staff changes, changeable signs pay for themselves quickly.

Fixings

• Stand-offs (small metal spacers) hold a plate a little off the wall, the usual choice for acrylic and steel signs.
• Concealed fixings such as keyhole slots or split battens give a clean face with no visible screws.
• Adhesive tape or silicone for small plates on smooth walls and on glass, where drilling isn't possible. On glass, we fix a matching backing plate on the other side so the tape isn't visible.
• Suspension by cables or rods from the slab or ceiling grid for hanging signs.
• Posts and bases for outdoor directional signs.

Tell us what the walls are made of. Gypsum partitions, glass, stone and concrete each need a different fixing, and rented offices often limit drilling.

Lit and digital wayfinding

Lit signs are worth using where a flat sign would be lost: dim corridors, car parks, building entrances at night, and facilities such as toilets and pharmacies that people look for from a distance. Screen directories suit buildings whose tenants, events or room bookings change often.

Lit signs

• Light box signs with a printed or cut face, slim enough to sit on a wall or project from it.
• Edge-lit acrylic: a clear panel with engraved lettering that glows from LEDs in the frame, popular for door and office signs.
• Lit arrows and pictograms as individual lit shapes or within a light box.
• Halo-lit numbers and names for floor numbers and feature walls.

Keep the light steady and moderate. A wayfinding sign should be easy to read, not the brightest thing in the corridor. Emergency exit signs are a separate category with their own power and approval requirements.

Digital directories and screens

We supply touch-screen directories and wayfinding screens with the software to manage them. They're a good fit for:

• Multi-tenant towers and business centres, where the tenant list changes monthly.
• Malls, where shops can be searched by name or category.
• Hospitals and campuses with many departments.
• Conference floors and hotels, where the day's events change.
• Meeting rooms, with a small screen at each door showing bookings.

A screen costs more than a printed directory and needs power, a network connection and someone to keep it up to date. For a building with a stable list of ten tenants, a well-made static directory is the better buy. Our digital signage page covers screens, content and software.

Wayfinding by building type

Each kind of building has a different visitor and a different first problem to solve. An office needs to get guests from the lift to reception; a hospital needs to guide anxious people along long routes; a mall needs to get shoppers from the car park to a shop and back to their car.

Offices

Start with the reception sign, the floor directory and meeting room signs, then offices and facilities. Match the signs to the fit-out finishes, and plan for change: name inserts, and meeting room names on vinyl or changeable plates. For multi-floor offices, give each floor a clear number at the lift and stair.

Clinics and hospitals

Use plain names that patients understand ("X-Ray" before "Radiology", or both), large lettering, strong contrast and pictograms. Number rooms in sequence along the corridor. In larger hospitals, colour-code zones or use lettered routes, and repeat confirmation signs on long corridors. Finishes should be smooth and easy to wipe clean.

Malls and shops

Shoppers need the car park level and zone, lifts and escalators, toilets, prayer rooms and anchor stores. Hanging and projecting signs work best because sightlines are long and crowded. Inside a shop, aisle and department signs do the same job at a smaller scale. Malls have their own sign guidelines for tenants, which we work to.

Hotels

Guests need the room-number directions at each lift lobby ("Rooms 301–320 left, 321–340 right"), room numbers, and routes to the restaurant, pool, spa, gym and meeting rooms. Hotel signs are usually in metal, timber or stone-effect finishes to match the interior, and room numbers are a good place for raised tactile characters.

Schools and campuses

Building names or letters visible from a distance, a campus map at each entrance, block and floor directories, and classroom numbers. Signs need to be tough, fixed with tamper-resistant fittings, and mounted with younger children's eye level in mind for the signs meant for them.

Car parks

Level and zone identification on columns and walls (large numbers, letters and colours), vehicle directions, pedestrian routes to the lifts, and "remember your level" signs at each lift lobby. Lettering must be large, because it's read from a moving car in low light.

Museums, galleries and public buildings

Wayfinding here sits alongside exhibit labels and interpretation panels. The signs should be quiet in design, consistent, and fully accessible, with tactile maps and raised signs where the code requires them.

Rules and approvals in Dubai

Signs inside your own premises generally don't need an advertising permit, but they still have to satisfy your landlord or mall, your fit-out approval, and Dubai's accessibility and fire safety codes. Signs outside the building, facing the public or the road, do need a permit.

• Interior signs. Follow the building's or mall's fit-out guide, which may set sign sizes, materials and fixing methods, especially in common corridors and lift lobbies. Signs in common areas usually need the landlord's approval.
• Accessibility. The Dubai Universal Design Code sets out what public and commercial buildings should provide: directories, door information, orientation signs, contrast, letter sizes and tactile information. Your architect or fit-out consultant will confirm what applies to your project.
• Fire and emergency signs. Exit, fire equipment and evacuation signs follow the UAE Fire and Life Safety Code and Civil Defence approval, separately from wayfinding. We are DCD-approved for exit signs.
• Exterior and site signs. Building-mounted, post-mounted and totem signs visible from outside need a permit from the authority for the area: Dubai Municipality and the Department of Economy and Tourism on the mainland, or the free zone or master developer authority, such as Trakhees or the Dubai Development Authority. We prepare the drawings and apply.
• Road signs. Signs on public roads belong to the RTA and follow its specifications. Private estate roads usually follow the same conventions.

How much do wayfinding signs cost in Dubai?

Wayfinding signs are priced per sign, by type, size, material and lettering method, plus design, the sign schedule and installation. Small door signs cost little each; the total depends mostly on how many signs the building needs. The ranges below are typical Dubai prices before VAT and are a guide only.

What changes the price

• Quantity. Unit prices fall as numbers rise, because design and set-up are shared.
• Material and lettering. Printed acrylic costs least; engraved metal and raised tactile lettering cost more.
• Lighting. Lit signs need LEDs, drivers and a power supply.
• Changeability. Insert systems cost a little more at first and much less to update.
• Installation. Ceiling suspension, high-level work, out-of-hours access in occupied buildings and difficult walls add time.
• Design work. A full system for a large building needs planning, a sign schedule and drawings before anything is made.

How to compare quotes

Give every supplier the same sign schedule, so the quotes cover the same signs. Then check the plate material and thickness, the lettering method, whether the Arabic has been checked, the fixing method, whether tactile signs meet the specification, and whether installation, making good and a snag visit are included.

Common wayfinding mistakes

Most wayfinding problems come from planning, not from how the signs are made. These are the ones we're asked to fix most often.

1. Different names for the same place on the directory, the arrows and the door.
2. Signs in the wrong place: halfway down a corridor, or facing away from the direction people arrive.
3. Lettering sized for the designer's screen, not for the corridor.
4. Too many destinations on one sign.
5. No confirmation at the destination, so people aren't sure they've arrived.
6. Low contrast and glare: grey on steel, white on glass, glossy faces under spotlights.
7. Fixed signs for things that change, such as staff names and tenant lists.
8. Arabic added at the end, in a smaller size or with errors.
9. Signs hidden behind doors when open, plants, screens or furniture.
10. A system that stops at the lift. The car park, the stairs and the back entrance need signs too.
11. Forgetting the way out. People need to find the exit, the lifts and their car again.

How we work

1. Survey. We walk the routes with you, mark decision points on the plan, and note walls, ceilings, lighting and power.
2. Sign schedule. A numbered list of every sign with location, type, size, wording in both languages and arrows, for you to check and approve.
3. Design. A sign family that matches your interior and brand, with letter sizes set for the reading distances.
4. Samples. For larger projects, a sample of each sign type, and paper mock-ups taped in place to test size and position.
5. Production. We make the signs, including raised tactile and braille signs, and check each against the schedule.
6. Approvals. Landlord submissions for common areas and permits for exterior signs.
7. Installation. Fitted to consistent heights, out of hours if the building is occupied, followed by a walk-through and snag list.

Typical lead time is 5–10 working days after the schedule and designs are approved. We also make one-off signs and small orders, and add matching signs to an existing system.