As one of the first points of entry for travelers, airports play a significant role in representing a city's or a country's identity—not only through architecture but also through environmental graphic design, particularly wayfinding systems. This research compares the wayfinding graphic design of two of the world’s most prominent airports: Singapore’s Changi Airport and Germany’s Munich Airport, located in culturally distinct regions. The study aims to analyse the differences in the main visual elements—imagery, color, and typography—used in the wayfinding systems of each airport and to explore the cultural or contextual reasons behind these differences.
This study is qualitative in nature and applied in purpose, as its findings can inform the graphic design of other international airports. The methodology is descriptive, analytical, and comparative, and data was collected through online and library-based sources due to the lack of direct access. The case study selection is based on Skytrax rankings, which identify Changi and Munich as the top airports in Asia and Europe, respectively.
The findings indicate that Changi Airport’s wayfinding system reflects the multicultural and diverse climate of Singapore through the use of varied imagery, colors, and multilingual signage (English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil). Pictograms follow international standards, with primary information highlighted in yellow, secondary in cyan, and additional details in green, orange, and purple. In contrast, Munich Airport demonstrates a more unified and minimalistic visual approach, consistent with German design values of precision and order. It employs a dedicated typeface (Munich Airport Pro), primarily uses English, and integrates limited color schemes, with distinctive use of Lufthansa’s yellow.