OM Dark Sky Park and Observatory

Nestled in the designated dark sky area of the Sperrin Mountains, OM Dark Sky Park and Observatory at Davagh Forest offers a unique indoor and outdoor visitor experience.

Inside the building – itself designed in sympathy to the forest surroundings – an engaging and fun visitor experience with hands-on physical interactivity and state-of-the-art digital interventions can be found.

The exhibition makes connections between ancient archaeology and astronomy, including how ancient farmers used the movements of the sun and moon to understand the change in seasons.

Interpretation design helps visitors understand and explore our own solar system in more detail. Tandem’s role extended from inside to the exterior and surrounding landscape.

The typefaces chosen for this project were based around our views on interpretation design. Interpretation design must inform, provoke and inspire the visiting public. When choosing how the content would essentially 'speak’ to the visitors, we were conscious of legibility along with how the content could be approachable.

FS Me is used for running texts. It was designed specifically to improve legibility for people with learning disabilities. The font was researched and developed by Fontsmith with – and endorsed by – Mencap, the UK’s leading charity and voice for those with learning disabilities.

Montserrat by Julieta Ulanovsky, a typeface inspired by the old posters and signs in the traditional Montserrat neighborhood of Buenos Aires, embodies warmth. As it’s been developed and inspired by the urban typography that emerged in the early half of the twentieth century, it acts like a direct tone of voice to the world and the visitors. In this project, it is used for headlines. Its default a was replaced by the alternate, single storey form.

Both of these typefaces are extremely accessible to visitors and work well together to communicate the knowledge clearly, while being visually intriguing.

The site and observatory is one of only two dark sky parks on the island of Ireland to receive international Dark Sky accreditation.