The Wayfinding Project
The Littlehampton Wayfinding Scheme was developed by Arun District Council in partnership with Littlehampton Museum, Littlehampton Town Council and Artswork in 2025. The new scheme aims to improve connections between Littlehampton’s town centre, riverside, and seafront while celebrating its rich heritage and vibrant community talent.
Existing totems and fingerposts were repurposed at key locations, with the new panels made from durable materials suited to the marine climate. Each totem features directional signage, walking times, and QR codes linking to live online maps.
Developed with the Community
A key highlight of the project is the strong emphasis on community involvement and creativity. Heritage interpretation panels were developed in close partnership with Littlehampton Museum, featuring local stories in the locations they took place in—from the town’s fishing traditions, significant buildings and the history of the railway.
Young illustrators have brought the legend of Lyminster’s Knucker Dragon to life, and images by local painters, graphic artists and photographers celebrate the places, colours and stories of Littlehampton across the scheme.
A key element of the new wayfinding is the series of artworks, characters and trails developed by students from The Littlehampton Academy as part of Artswork’s Young Cultural Changemakers programme, supported by Arts Council England. You can find out more information about the trails by visiting its dedicated page.
How was this project funded?
The scheme was funded through Arun District Council’s allocation from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). The ongoing maintenance of the totems remains with Arun District Council. Littlehampton Town Council fund the QR code service so the use can be monitored.
How were the places featured on the totems decided?
A dedicated workshop was held where all Littlehampton Councillors from the district and town councils were invited to review all the locations listed on the previous wayfinding scheme. At the workshop, members were invited to discuss the relevance of each location, remove any they felt were unnecessary, and add any locations they felt were missing. After the workshop, all elected members in Arun District Council were invited to take part in the exercise which was shared via email.
A main goal of the wayfinding is to highlight destinations within the “golden triangle” — that’s the seafront, riverside, and town centre — so the scheme helps bring people to all these key areas.
We wanted to support businesses across the triangle but agreed not to mention specific names. Instead, we chose broader terms like “shops”, “services”, “cafés and restaurants” and “fairground and amusements”. This way, the signs stay useful even if businesses change, and we won’t need to update them as regularly.
Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, East Beach Café attracts visitors to Littlehampton for its striking architecture of the, so we want to make sure they can find it! After checking with the architect’s official site, we made sure to use the name he had given to the design project. We then labelled the location as “Heatherwick’s E. Beach Café” and used the icon colour chosen to reflect notable buildings.
Why don’t the signs point to accommodation and hotels?
Littlehampton has a thriving and diverse accommodation offer, with everything from emerging hotels, traditional B&Bs, to a growing number of short-term rentals listed on platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com. It’s an innovative and fast-moving sector, with options spread across the town and changing regularly. Because of this, it’s not practical to show accommodation on the wayfinding signs without risking confusion. To fairly reflect the full range of places to stay, we’d need to include general arrows to “Accommodation” pointing in every direction from every totem — which would make the signage less clear and less helpful for visitors. Instead, we’ve focused the scheme on guiding people between the town centre, riverside and seafront, with QR codes on each totem linking to live maps and listings where visitors can easily find up-to-date accommodation options.
We also considered how people behave when looking for somewhere to stay. The number of visitors arriving without pre-booked accommodation and making a spontaneous decision to stay overnight is likely to be very small. In those cases, the most typical behaviour would be to search online for availability, rather than follow general signage to make an in-person enquiry without first checking images, prices and availability. That’s why each totem includes a QR code linking to the live Google maps and business listings, giving visitors quick access to up-to-date accommodation options alongside the clear signposting to Littlehampton’s key areas — the town centre, riverside and seafront.
How did we work out the walking distances?
First, we used Google Maps to estimate how far it was from each totem to every destination listed on that totem. Then, to make sure the figures were accurate, we picked three totems and walked to each location that totem pointa to at a leisurely walking pace. That gave us confidence that the Google times were pretty accurate, and we then tweaked a few of the times based on local knowledge.
Why don’t the signs always show the fastest routes?
The direction element of the scheme is mainly for visitors, who may not know the area well. Locals usually know where things are, but we’re trying to help tourists by providing clear, joined-up routes between key locations at the seafront, town centre and riverside.
Since we only have a limited number of totems and there’s only a limited amount of space on each one, we can’t show every possible route to every destination. Instead, we’ve chosen routes that are simple to follow, make sense for someone unfamiliar with the area, and ideally link up with the next totem — so people can keep following signs in a sensible direction until they reach where they’re going.
Sometimes this means we guide people along a slightly longer path if it’s clearer and better signposted. For example, when directing towards the train station, rather than pointing someone down a quiet road with no further wayfinding totems— even if it’s a bit quicker — we might direct them through the town centre, where there are more signs to help them along the way. This might add a minute or so to their walk, but it makes the journey easier and less confusing.
And for those who want to explore different routes or check exactly where they are, every totem includes a QR code that opens to their location on Google Maps — giving people the freedom to choose their own path if they prefer.
How big is the font?
The wayfinding type size has a CAP height of approximately 10mm which roughly equates to reading distance of 4m. Most people tend to stand much closer to the totems.