Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 16, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 140-144).

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Hous. M.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf [85]-[91])

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-71)

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-90)

The rapid urbanization of land and the associated growth of the 'city' have created an unprecedented demand for living and work space throughout this country and the world. The problems that are arising from this process should be examined. Sign proliferation is one of the factors contributing towards the overall effect on the character of the city. The main controversies have centred around sign appearance and location based on their presumed ugliness and effect on their surroundings. Private advertising zeal, or misplaced public priorities are often the cause of these physical problems, which lead to public and private conflicts of interest. The basic aim of the thesis is to examine sign regulation in order to determine its effect on the urban environment, as well as analyse the problems of physical appearance, public and private interests and other resulting problems of regulation. The basic assumptions taken for the study are: it is desirable for man to seek and demand an environment which will contribute towards his well-being; the concept of the public interest is both valid and useful; and planning in the form of sign regulation is useful and possible in our society, with some optimum is possible. As a basis for this investigation it is hypothesized that - The aesthetic purpose of sign regulation results in a conflict of public and private interests, that is being resolved by the adoption of diverse municipal sign regulations.- With the assumptions in mind, the investigation comprised a review of the literature, which was most useful for the establishment of techniques and general requirements for an effective environment, as well as information from a questionnaire directed to several cities in Canada which have undertaken sign regulatory measures with the ensuing problems. The hypothesis is examined specifically through the use of sign legislation of several cities and municipalities in British Columbia. The City of Victoria B.C., one of the cities studied, exhibited many of the typical problems encountered when stricter control over signs is attempted. The process of adopting sign regulation, amidst public and private interests, is aptly illustrated by this example. Another City, Ottawa, Ontario, displayed many of the same problems. Here, sign regulation, as one of the ingredients of a beautification scheme, contributed much to the pedestrian atmosphere and urban environment, as well as showing the relation of improved sign regulation to an overall program of environmental improvement. The most significant observation in the study was the variation in contents of sign ordinances. The many types of regulations presently in use, leads to the conclusion that sign regulation today is complex, with many problems still unsolved. Sign control applied by local government presently could be any level that is achieved in light of the ensuing problems within the community. The basic recommendations are that local government and private interests collaborate to achieve the desired objective. Although this joint effort may lead to diverse regulations, the ultimate goal should be controlling the direction of the developing environment. This can be obtained in part by controlling and regulating signs. Local government, through its delegated power to control street furnishings in the public right-of-way should provide the atmosphere and leadership necessary so that private enterprise may from time to time initiate actions for urban improvement. Subject to the limitations placed on the study, the hypothesis is considered valid. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This thesis investigates the relationship between communication and place, and the informational environment it forms. The thesis takes as its object of analysis signage, and examines signage as an implaced medium of communication. / In this work communication, including its practices and technologies, is treated as a dynamic ritual formed by the marking, naming, connecting, and interpreting the environment in the process of wayfinding. Such an approach underscores the inherent duality of communication: its manifestations framed by transmission and ritual; its boundedness by both space and time; and its expression in both mobile and fixed (implaced) media. The thesis thus shifts the disciplinary discourse from the usual text- and language-based focus to a more comprehensive focus that encompasses architectural and infrastructural environments and the grounding action of physical presences. Through its focus on the navigational aspects of communication, and framing by such concepts as wayfinding and signposting, the thesis shows how we can reconfigure the notion of the visual to include the embodied, experiential, and implaced. This in turn can help us gain a new perspective on the changing nature of text, image, representation, information and reality. / The thesis argues that as the themes of orientation, navigation, and interface grow alongside the new communication technologies, they make it important to attend to the original mediating role of the built environment and the navigational dimensions of place. It is here, within our foundational spatial orientation and wayfinding, that we turn for the metaphors, conceptual structures, and grounding as we chart our ways through the emerging informational environments. / In examining signage as a system of interfaces used in negotiating informational environments, as way-markers in a process of wayfinding, the thesis demonstrates the ways in which the concepts of wayfinding and navigation have become consequential to communication scholarship. It proposes that fruitful cues for the theorising and understanding of emerging informational realms can be drawn from the communicative dimensions of the most familiar immersive environments and their related practices: the physical spaces and built environments that we inhabit and negotiate daily.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Purdue University, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 164-168). Also available online from the Purdue University website (http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/).

This paper reports on a study carried out to explore some aspects of the relation of behavior to the physical context. It attempts to investigate the possibilities of psychophysical needs as determinants in evaluating and structuring the visual environment. For purposes of this study, signs in the context of the city were selected as specific elements of the visual environment which would be analyzed in terms of the research. Advertising, information, and identification signs were examined in terms of their function as design elements within the total visual image of the city, and as they could relate to perceptual and aesthetic processes. The intent of this paper was to establish a practical basis for a new approach to the structure of sign control in urban areas. The initial step was to outline the various theories relating to perception, to describe the perceptual process as it is generally understood, and to examine some of the complex variables which are operative in the processes of perception. Both physical and psychological factors combine in intricate relationships of inherent needs and capabilities as well effects of learning and experience. In addition, the relationship between aesthetics, or the formal elements of art, and basic psychophysical needs for pattern and complexity in visual stimuli were investigated. Material from the areas of psychology, biology, and design was explored in an attempt to bridge some of the many gaps which now exist between behavioral sciences, art and the planning of the visual environment. Finally, a proposed structure for a sign control by-law was developed which would provide a more comprehensive design basis than that which presently exists, and which in adoption, would be more consistent with the needs described in the processes of perception and aesthetic satisfaction. As a result of this study, it was concluded that within any given culture, broad similarities occur in the related processes of perception and aesthetic satisfaction. These two processes have both physical and cultural components, and learning and motivation seem to play large roles, as do the innate factors. The search for stimulus variability and complexity seems to be a basic incentive in human behavior. There is also evidence of an optimal perceptual rate within homogeneous cultures. Further research in order to develop adequate methodology to test optimal perceptual responses and level of satisfaction of the visual environment is essential. However, these psychophysical processes provide a more realistic and comprehensive basis for the evaluation of the environment. Development of a design framework which will allow the maxim of complexity and variability to occur within a total pattern is a more desirable and effective approach toward the visual environment than that which now exists. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

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