Following last week’s look at an opening for a Structural Steel Specialist at the AISC, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore a role for a Wayfinding Designer at Mijksenaar USA.
The successful candidate will join the firm’s New York City office, working on “complex wayfinding systems around the world” with a particular focus on transportation facilities, cities, museums, and hospitals. The role, which requires a minimum three years’ experience in wayfinding, architecture, or information design, calls for someone with strong skills in graphic design, 3D design, technical design, and creative thinking.
Why the role interests us
The themes of graphic design and wayfinding are already familiar to our Job Highlights series. Back in March, we used a signage and wayfinding position at Pentagram to investigate the connection between environmental graphic design and architecture, while our July 2022 focus on a signage and experiential graphic designer role at C&G Partners sought to further understand what a career as a graphic designer would look like in an architectural practice.
Stepping back, the topic of wayfinding introduces us to a broader conversation on accessibility in the built environment. A core responsibility of wayfinding designers is to ease the burden of navigating the built environment, whether on the scale of a building in spaces such as airports or on the scale of a city in everything from street signs to subway maps.
Throughout 2022, our editorial has offered examples of how this goal of universal accessibility is often undermined by oversight at the design stage. In August, we covered a controversy surrounding the overhaul of Ontario Place in Toronto, where locals expressed concern over the “tone deaf” nature of the design, including on the grounds of accessibility.
In July, meanwhile, it was announced that the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. would seek to improve wayfinding through expert consultation to “assess and implement navigation improvements necessary to make it easier for visitors to find their way through the Capitol campus.” Wayfinding and accessibility were also the focus of issues surrounding Wrigley Field in July and the MTA subway system in New York City in June.
Further reading for interested candidates
Job Highlights is one of a number of ongoing weekly series showcasing the opportunities available on our industry-leading job board. Our Meet Your Next Employer profiles and interviews interesting studios with open positions currently available on Archinect Jobs, while our weekly roundups curate job opportunities by location, career level, and job description.
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