Things to Consider When Designing ADA Signs
When it comes to ADA signs there are certain guidelines that need to be followed so that you are compliant. If you do not abide with the rules, you are sure that you will attract things like fines and penalties which will cost you a lot of money at the end of the day. Below are some of the factors that you need to consider when designing ADA signs.
With ADA signs there is a specific font that is required and it is important to ensure that you use it. The font that needs to be used is San serif and you need to be keen on the case, proportion and height of the letters. It is important to make sure that you use the right fonts but there is room for you to play around with things like the color, shape and material of the signs to make it beautiful.
It is important that you ensure that you apply kerning to the characters even though it is something that most people do not enjoy but it is a requirement for the ADA sign. Since some characters naturally tend to pair closely together, you need a distance of 3.2mm between the characters. With the spacing you may need to have a larger sign since you cannot squeeze everything close together because people with visibility issues may not be able to see the letters when everything is close together.
The character size is also something else that you need to consider when you are designing the sign since there are a few requirements when it comes to the size of the letters. For the letters, it is important that the minimum size of the letters be ” and the maximum be 2″. Naturally the rule is broken when the frame is small or there is no room for braille but the only exception to the rule is letter size of ” when dual signs are used.
If you intend to use braille then there are certain codes that you also need to follow as well. With braille, the rule that needs to be followed is the shape and size of the braille dot cells and you do not have to worry about including or excluding any material. Ideally grade II braille is what is required in most cases since it has 189 contractions and uses short form words.
Signage mounting also needs to follow specific rules and the flooring is something that you also need to consider when it comes to placement of the signs. Incase you are unsure of the height mounting of the sign then you may need to confirm with the building inspector. To determine the right height, you need to make sure that you interpret the codes well.