Wayfinding for the Tokyo Modern Art Museum

A wayfinding system for a mid-sized contemporary museum in Shibuya rebuilding after a five-year renovation. JA primary, EN secondary, with the brief that neither audience should feel like a translation tier of the other.

The brief

The museum’s existing signage was almost entirely Japanese — English appeared only in the most public-facing spaces and read as a service afterthought. The renovation was the opportunity to rebuild the bilingual hierarchy from zero, with EN-reading visitors a substantial and growing fraction of attendance.

The approach

We rebuilt the typographic system around a pair of weights — one Latin display, one CJK display — that share an x-height and a stroke weight to within a hair. Where signage had to be bilingual, we set the JA on the primary line and the EN one rule below, with no size difference. Where it had to be trilingual (the four most-visited galleries) we added a third Latin script weight one rule below the EN, kept at the same size. The principle: information hierarchy is by spatial sequence, never by typographic deprecation.

Deliverables

Wayfinding system across two buildings. Primary, directional, and identification signage families. Gallery title typography (six rooms). Print companion (gallery map). Documentation manual.