Moscow street signs

Street signs indicate the location of important city objects, organizations and landmarks. They are made in the form of either free-standing structures or panel brackets for mounting on lighting and utility poles. The signs contain the name of the object in two languages, its pictogram, address and walking time in minutes. To simplify typesetting and make comprehension of long official names of state organizations easier, universal rules for their abbreviation were created. All texts on the signs are typed with the Direct-Mos typeface—a modified version of the Direct typeface created specifically for navigation.

Simple sign   Sign with additional information

Besides the traditional blue background of the signs, a new brown one was proposed to visually separate cultural objects. Pictograms are used as a secondary navigation element. They convey the message even to those who do not know the language, as well as improve legibility of information from a distance, in bad weather conditions, in low light and so on, as their optical density is higher than that of text.