Toronto Parks Wayfinding

Client City of Toronto
Location Toronto, Canada
Years 2013 - 2019
Services Wayfinding, Brand & Visual Identity, Cartography, GIS, Placemaking, Information Design

Wayfinding across the City of Toronto’s 1600+ parklands needed improving to address the differing needs and focus of the urban and parks environments.

Covering 13% of the city’s land area and ranging from urban plazas to forested ravines, Toronto’s 1,600 parks and 600km trail network are one of the city’s greatest assets. Steer’s Design for Movement team was appointed to create a wayfinding strategy for the city’s parks and trails.

Phase One of the project established the system’s core wayfinding principles, user needs and recommended product design direction – informed by extensive consultation and community outreach. This framework provided the necessary tools for Phase Two. Following detailed design development, a pilot was installed to test the suitability of the proposed solution in context.

The strategy is structured around aligning the diverse characteristics of park and trail environments with user behaviour. While parks are recreational spaces to linger and socialise, trails are linear routes that support activities such as walking and cycling. Recognising these differences, we developed a suite of modular wayfinding signage frames with interchangeable panels to suit a variety of conditions. The system consists of two signage families: green signs inform users about parks and support navigation, and orange signs support walking and cycling for trails.

Richly illustrated maps are at the core of the wayfinding system. The maps share the same base as the city pedestrian wayfinding system (TO360), supporting friction-free transitions between parkland and urban environments.

As part of the preparation for a city-wide rollout, we developed in-depth implementation guidelines. As a final step we developed a detailed implementation strategy that aligned with available funding streams and investment priorities.

Consultants/collaborators
Third Party Public (formerly Swerhun)  - Public consultation
Jedco Product Design – Detailed product design