Government, councils & libraries
Accessible and certified by default, for the civic buildings, council offices and libraries the public has to navigate.
In short
Public sector wayfinding is signage that lets any member of the public reach the right counter or room unaided, in Irish and English, to Part M. Wayfinders designs, installs and certifies it for councils, civic centres, libraries and Garda stations, and keeps one standard consistent across every site in the estate.
County councils, civic and community centres, libraries and Garda facilities, delivered to the strictest accessibility and inclusive-design standards.
Value for public money, demonstrable compliance, and a track record that stands up to procurement scrutiny.
01The challenge
Nobody is inducted into a council office. The visitor might be nineteen or ninety-one, paying motor tax or objecting to a planning application, and may not read English comfortably. Staff are behind a counter, so everything has to be on the wall.
Public bodies sit inside the Official Languages Act, Part M and the Disability Act 2005. Getting the Irish wrong, or smaller than the English, is a breach rather than a style choice.
County estates are signed one building and one budget at a time. Without a written standard, each call-off drifts a little further: a different red, a different crest, a different typeface, until the county looks like five organisations.
Work is won by tender and drawn down by call-off, and the file has to answer the auditor or access officer years after the people who signed it off have moved on.
02What we deliver
Design, project management and installation by our own teams, with one accountable supplier from first drawings to the signed certificate.
We sign the task the visitor came to do, in the words they would use. Nobody arrives looking for Corporate Services. At Donegal County Council's Dungloe centre, one external totem lists eight services behind a single door, with opening times in both languages.
Irish first, never smaller or less prominent, panels sized for two languages from the first layout and the Irish proofed before manufacture. At Bettystown Civic Centre the floor directories carry Irish and English at equal weight on every level.
Part M and BS 8300 as the floor: 30-point LRV contrast, matt finishes, tactile lettering and braille on key rooms, and ISO 7010 escape signage designed from the fire certificate. We sign off the compliance certificates on completion.
Crest, typeface, colour, bilingual layout and mounting rules fixed once and written into the technical specification, where every later call-off has to read it. Signs for several sites go out as one production run so the colour matches.
Competitive tender, framework call-off or through the main contractor on a new civic building. Much of our council work in Mayo, Donegal and Tipperary has been won by tender, and Wexford Garda HQ was delivered with OPW Architects and the main contractor.
An as-built schedule, certificates and an asset register at handover. When a department moves, the replacement is specified from the record; at Clonmel District HQ the directory is built from changeable slats, so one slat is remade rather than the whole board.
03How we work
Approvals cut from months to days. The same five stages on every project, so nothing falls between packages.
A wayfinding system and sign family designed to work with your architecture and identity.
Numbering, floor IDs, lift lobbies, car parks and egress, built for how people navigate.
Designed to the strictest accessibility and legislative criteria. Certified on completion.
Stove-enamelled aluminium and other long-life materials, made to spec or above it.
Our own fitting teams, working to complex construction schedules.
04Standards
The standards and regulations this work is designed to. Compliance is the baseline, not an upsell.
05Proof
Brochure · 8 pages
Accessible, bilingual, certified wayfinding for councils, civic buildings, libraries and Garda stations, delivered estate-wide by one specialist.
Yes. Public bodies listed under the Official Languages Act must sign in Irish and English, and S.I. No. 391 of 2008 sets the detail: the Irish goes first and must not be smaller, less prominent or less legible than the English. Local authorities, government departments and state agencies are all inside it.
Part M of the Building Regulations and its Technical Guidance Document set the legal floor, with BS 8300 supplying the detail on contrast, type and mounting height. The Disability Act 2005 then requires public buildings to be brought into line with Part M. We design to all three by default and certify compliance on completion.
Yes. We work through competitive tenders, framework call-offs and main contractors, and much of our council work, from Mayo and Donegal to Tipperary, was won by tender. On a framework we recommend writing the signage standard into the technical specification, because it is the one document every call-off must read.
With a written standard and one production run. Crest, typeface, colour, bilingual layout and mounting rules are fixed once, and signs for several sites are made together so the colour matches. For Donegal County Council that meant one compliant system across six Public Services Centres spread around the county.
Yes. We survey each building, record what is already installed and meet the stakeholders on site. The result is an asset register that shows what can stay, what fails Part M or the Official Languages Act, and what to replace first, so a refresh can be priced and phased against capital budgets.
Yes. Our own install teams work around opening hours, public counters and queues, and phase the work so no entrance or service is left without signage.
Compliance certificates signed off by us, an as-built schedule of every sign with its location and content, and O&M documentation. Replacements are specified from that record, and the installation is covered by our 10-year warranty.
07Insights
Nobody is inducted into a council office, and nothing arrives in the post to explain it. The signage is the only briefing most visitors ever get.
Three buildings, one local authority, three different signage systems. County-wide consistency is won in the documentation, long before anything reaches a wall.
Three routes take a wayfinding package from drawing to wall: main-contract, client-direct, novated. Each moves the design risk somewhere different.
Certification is evidence, not assurance. Contrast, tactile relief and mounting position: measured, recorded, and handed over with the building.
The signs a building must carry by law, room by room: fire and escape, Part M, plant rooms, capacity, and the paperwork that proves it at handover.
The wheelchair symbol is the most recognised access mark on earth, and one of the most casually misused. Where it belongs, and how we specify it.
Government, councils & libraries
Approvals cut from months to days, typically around 20% off the wayfinding package, and one supplier from design to installation.
