Sign Design Guide+
Sign Design Guide+: a guide to designing inclusive wayfinding information.
The Sign Design Guide+ is the Sign Design Society's practical guide to designing inclusive, accessible signs, covering legibility, placement and lighting. The 2024 edition updates the Sign Design Guide first published in 2000 with RNIB and the Joint Mobility Unit.
For signage and wayfinding
What it asks of your signs
- 01It is the reference many official documents point to for sign design detail: DfT's Inclusive Mobility and BSI's PAS 6463 both cite the Sign Design Guide.
- 02Covers the design decisions that standards leave open: typeface, character size against viewing distance, layout, placement and lighting.
- 03Written for specialists and non-specialists, so it works as a briefing document for a client or design team.
- 04Print only. Budget for a copy on the project rather than hoping to find a PDF.
What it is
The original Sign Design Guide was published in 2000 by the Joint Mobility Unit and the Sign Design Society with RNIB, written by Peter Barker and June Fraser. It became a widely used UK reference on accessible sign design, and it is cited in DfT's Inclusive Mobility for character sizes at long, medium and close reading distances, and in BSI's PAS 6463.
The Sign Design Guide+ is the new edition, issued by the Sign Design Society in 2024 and written by Peter Barker, June Fraser and Andrew Barker. The Society describes it as practical guidance for experts and non-specialists, based on inclusive design best practice and the latest research, covering design principles including legibility, placement and lighting.
How to use it
The guide has no regulatory status, but it fills the gap between what codes of practice require and what a sign designer has to decide. Use it with BS 8300-2 or TGD M and the NDA's Building for Everyone in Ireland, and cite it in a signage strategy where you are making choices about type, size and position that the standards do not settle.
Where a specification quotes figures from the 2000 edition, check them against the new edition before you rely on them.
Availability
The Society sells it in print only: A4, around 300 pages, in colour. It is ordered direct from the Sign Design Society, with a discount for members.
Editions and history
First published in 2000 as the Sign Design Guide by the Joint Mobility Unit and the Sign Design Society, with RNIB. Replaced by the Sign Design Guide+ in 2024.
Sources checked
- signdesignsociety.co.uk/sign-design-guide-plus/
- archive.signdesignsociety.co.uk/book/the-sign-design-guide/
- assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61d32bb7d3bf7f1f72b5ffd2/inclusive-mobility-a-guide-to-best-practice-on-access-to-pedestrian-and-transport-infrastructure.pdf
- bsigroup.com/siteassets/pdf/en/insights-and-media/insights/brochures/pas_6463_final.pdf
A summary in our own words, checked on 16 October 2026. It is not the document itself and not legal advice.
Equivalents and related
The same ground, elsewhere.
- Design of an accessible and inclusive built environment. Buildings. Code of practiceUK
- Inclusive Mobility: A Guide to Best Practice on Access to Pedestrian and Transport InfrastructureEngland
- Building for Everyone: A Universal Design ApproachIreland
- Design for the mind. Neurodiversity and the built environment. GuideUK
- Accessible design. Application of braille on signage, equipment and appliancesInternational
Read more
Working to Sign Design Guide+ on a live project?
Wayfinding design, compliance, manufacture and installation, with the signage certificates signed off by us.