The Visual Plan of Buenos Aires was the first comprehensive design[1]​ of the urban signage of the City of Buenos Aires, created between 1971 and 1972 by decision of the then Buenos Aires mayor Saturnino Montero Ruiz. The design was carried out by the studio of Guillermo González Ruiz and Ronald Shakespear, being an outstanding work in both of their careers. An effort was made to establish a coherent system of information and visual identification capable of "guiding the inhabitant to their destination without asking anyone anything".[2]​ It is considered an avant-garde milestone in urban design,[3][4][5]​ imitated in other cities in Latin America,[6][7]​ whose influence endures to this day in the visual identity of Buenos Aires.[2]​ Over the years, however, its application became inconsistent and although it did not exist no similar plan to replace it, different provisions were altering the planned criteria.[8]​.

As part of the Visual Plan, the street and avenue naming signs were redesigned, a function that until then was fulfilled by blue enamelled plates attached to the walls of the buildings. The latter, whose preparation was in charge of the General Directorate of Transit of the Municipality, presented important divergences in their location, design and typography.[2] González Ruiz and Shakespear decided to replace them with signs located in the "Chamfer (architecture)" ochavas, separated from the building line and supported by poles trussed at an established height, a fact that constituted an innovation at the time. rupturista.[3][7][9] Originally the signs would be blue, as indicated by the regulations, but technicians from the Municipality ordered them to be made in black so they could be attached to the traffic lights. The idea was abandoned by the municipality, Shakespear indicates, "when verifying that the agglutination of stimuli in the same column causes them to attack each other and weaken their perception".[1]​ A white vector would indicate the direction of circulation, while information on the height of the block corresponding to each signal was also incorporated. With the nomenclators, the massive use of Helvetica typography was also introduced in the urban signage and institutional identity of the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires.[1]​.

Other information elements contemplated by the plan were bus stop indicators, the manito characteristic of taxi stops, nomenclators for green spaces and a simplified version of the coat of arms of the City of Buenos Aires designed for extensive use on posters and other elements of public space.[5]​ The latter, with interruptions, was used until the end of the 1980s. sequential placement, and pictogrammatic, chromatic and typographic codes.[8]​.