Wayfinding for more than one million customers a year

Client

Storyhouse

Location

Chester

Discipline

Brand

Interiors

Signage

Strategy

Sectors

Built Environment

Retail & Leisure

Curved staircase with brass handrail beside a wood-paneled wall signed CINEMA, listing sections such as Reading Rooms, Biography and Fiction.

Making a complex building easy to navigate

Storyhouse is a big, layered building with a lot happening under one roof. Our job was to make it easy to navigate without filling its beautiful Art Deco interiors with intrusive signage.

Before the venue opened, we worked alongside the architectural and interior design teams to develop a wayfinding system that helped visitors find theatres, bars, toilets, library, meeting rooms and other spaces across multiple floors, while feeling like a natural part of the building.

Red slanted wall with white theatre signage reading THEATRE and GARRET, door directions and icons for seating and refreshments.

Black door with white stylised women's restroom symbol, vertical brushed-metal pull and small round lock set in a white wall.

Red door with white wheelchair-accessible symbol, long stainless-steel vertical handle and round lock.

Minimal black right-pointing arrow composed of three short bars, centred on a white background.

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Working with the building

Storyhouse is a big, layered building with a lot happening under one roof. Our job was to make it easy to navigate without filling its beautiful Art Deco interiors with intrusive signage.

Creating a system people could follow

We developed a clear hierarchy for the wayfinding, distinguishing between primary destinations, secondary spaces and supporting information.

We also designed a bespoke set of icons for key facilities and destinations, taking visual cues from Storyhouse’s stencil-style logo so they felt like a natural extension of the identity rather than a generic signage set.

Just as importantly, we worked through the building itself to decide where information was really needed. The result feels deliberately understated. Instead of looking like a layer added afterwards, the signage sits nicely within the architecture and lets the building remain the star.

Silhouetted man in a red jacket walking past a railing beneath a MEZZANINE → sign on a pale frosted glass wall.

White mezzanine wall labelled CINEMA THEATRE MEZZANINE above a cosy library with bookshelves, tables and sofas

Elevator doors with bold black stylised person icon and up/down arrows, beside a dark wall with white directory text and a red bench.

Pinned mockups of signage, icons and wayfinding layouts for a theatre/cinema on a white wall.

"Slide reading 'There are only three types of destination: Primary: Theatre, Secondary: Rooftop Bar, Pictograms: [restroom icons]' on black background.

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Helping visitors get their bearings

Not every bit of wayfinding needed to live on a wall. We also designed a fold-out map of the venue, giving visitors a simple overview of the different floors and spaces they could carry with them as they explored.

That mattered in a building designed to be discovered as much as navigated. The aim wasn’t to plaster every route with instructions, but to give people enough information to feel confident finding their own way around.

Peacock perched on a white interior ledge with long green tail draping above a diagonal wall sign reading CINEMA THEATRE MEZZANINE

Wood-panelled library wall with white CINEMA signage above shelves of books and a white perforated counter in foreground.

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Six white restroom pictogram icons: men's, women's, accessible, family/accessible table, baby changing, and unisex.

Black pictogram of a wheelchair user and standing person with an upward arrow on a pale column inside a building beside a brick wall and metal supports.

Six white pictogram icons: theatre stage, cinema screen, auditorium seating, exit arrow, hearing loop, and ticket.

Close-up of the exterior of a restaurant named “The Kitchen,” featuring large copper-colored lettering above a dark-framed entrance set into a brick building.

A relationship beyond signage

Our work with Storyhouse went well beyond the original wayfinding project. We branded its in-house restaurant, The Kitchen, creating an identity inspired by its Mediterranean and African-influenced menu, and went on to support the team with creative work throughout the venue. This included projects that ranged from applying seasonal poetry to the walls, to designing invitations for Storyhouse’s royal opening.

Different briefs, but the same principle each time: creating something useful and distinctive that feels completely at home in Storyhouse.

As we were getting ready to open Storyhouse, we asked Stride to work with us to produce practical but creative wayfinding signage throughout the building. We found the team brilliant to work with throughout the whole process, and two and a half years on we are pleased that their work is still here to help customers find their way around.

We have gone on to work with Stride for various other projects including our (very important!) invitations for a visit by Her Majesty the Queen and The Duchess of Sussex, and branding for our very first digital art commission. Each time, Stride have proven themselves to be a reliable, efficient and very talented bunch.

Jen Chapman, Head of Sales and Marketing