The Berlin Bran­den­burg Air­port is one of the largest and most com­plex trans­port in­fra­struc­ture pro­jects in Ger­many. The build­ing was de­signed by the renowned ar­chi­tects gmp and JSK In­ter­na­tional. Moni­teurs was al­ready ac­tively in­volved in the pro­ject at the com­pe­ti­tion phase for the com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­sign, and by de­grees was com­mis­sioned to de­sign the ori­en­ta­tion sys­tem for the air­port in­clud­ing its sur­round­ings. A key de­sign fea­ture is the colour red, un­usual for air­ports. This gives clear sig­nals for ori­en­ta­tion, and also har­monises with the ar­chi­tec­ture, with its warm tones of wood and nat­ural stone. At the same time, it is mod­elled on the ap­pear­ance of its home states of Berlin and Bran­den­burg. In many places, the signs are di­rectly em­bed­ded into the ar­chi­tec­tural pan­els – some flow around the cor­ner, and this con­cept is wo­ven into the prod­uct de­sign of the signs out­side the build­ing.

A further element dovetailing the orientation system and the architecture is the lines of the individual graphical elements of the orientation system. Moniteurs adopted the linear structures of the architecture, themselves based upon the coniferous forests of Brandeburg, something which has also inspired some of the modern buildings of Berlin, such as the New National Gallery by Mies van der Rohe. The lines that make up the letters and pictograms produce graded tones, which create a hierarchy among the signs without having to be colourful. In this way, the information is well structured and easily readable. The content structure has been just as clearly configured: the pictogram of the departing aircraft accompanies passengers to security, after which the signs for gates A – D become visible. As the architectural language varies from one part of the building to another, so too does the graphical language of the orientation system. In the North Pier, for example, where the wall fixtures are not made of wood, passenger information is applied directly to the walls. This variety of applications illustrates once more the strength of the clear, integrated design concept.