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How to Design Arrows on Directional Signs

An arrow looks like the simplest element on a sign. It is the one most often read wrong. Whether an upward arrow means straight ahead or upstairs, whether the arrow sits left or right of the text, and whether three destinations share one arrow or get three: each of these has a convention, and breaking it costs you the visitor at exactly the moment they were relying on the sign.

Up means straight ahead

On a wall-mounted or overhead directional sign, an arrow pointing up means continue straight ahead. It does not mean upstairs. This is the convention on roads, in airports and in every major transit system, and visitors bring it with them.

Going up a level is shown by a diagonal arrow pointing up and to one side, usually paired with a stairs or lift pictogram, or by text. Down a level is the same with the arrow pointing down. A plain downward arrow, on the other hand, is almost never used, because it reads as either behind you or below you and nobody can tell which.

If your building has a legacy of using upward arrows for upstairs, change it. The cost of one sign scheme is lower than the cost of every visitor unlearning the convention they arrived with.

Which side the arrow goes

The arrow sits on the side it points to. A left-pointing arrow goes at the left edge of the sign with its text to the right; a right-pointing arrow goes at the right edge with its text to the left. Straight-ahead arrows sit on the left by default, or on the right if the sign is mounted to the right of the route.

The reason is reading order. The eye lands on the arrow, takes the direction, then reads the destination. When a right-pointing arrow sits on the left, the eye has to travel back across the text to confirm what it thought it saw, and on a busy sign it often does not.

Never put arrows on both sides of the same line of text. Group by direction instead.

Grouping destinations by direction

One arrow per direction, not one per destination. A sign with five destinations that all lie to the left has one left arrow and five lines of text beside it. Five arrows say the same thing five times and make the sign look like a list of exceptions.

Order the groups the way the eye scans: straight ahead first, then left, then right, then up or down. Within a group, put the nearer destination above the farther one, so the list reads as the route unfolds.

Cap the whole sign at four or five destinations. If the junction really serves more, the answer is a second sign a few metres on, not a smaller typeface.

Arrow shape and size

Use one arrow style across the whole building. A solid, single-weight arrow with a clear head reads best at distance; outlined or decorative arrows lose definition first as the viewer moves away.

Size the arrow to the cap height of the text beside it. An arrow taller than the letters looks like a warning; one shorter than the letters disappears. Roughly the same height, with a stroke thick enough to hold up at the sign's intended viewing distance, is the target.

Give the arrow the same colour as the text unless the colour is doing wayfinding work of its own, in which case it follows the zone colour and the text stays neutral.

Testing an arrow before you fabricate it

Print the sign at full size on paper, tape it where it will hang, and walk toward it with someone who does not know the building. Ask them, before they reach it, where they would go for each destination. If they hesitate on any line, the arrow or its placement is wrong.

Then stand where the sign says to turn and look for the next one. The arrow's job ends where the next sign's job begins, and a gap between them is where people stop trusting the scheme.

For a plan of the building itself, which is what most people want once they have followed two arrows and are still not sure, a scannable map on the sign carries the detail an arrow never can. That is what QRCodeMaps does, from $99 a month with a free trial.