The power of signage

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Don’t ever under-estimate the power of signage…

Advertisements for TV shows and movies are always created by professionals. Ditto for print ads in magazines and newspapers. But why, oh why, is signage often left to amateurs?

Do people who create (or place) signs imagine that not very many people will see them? And if that’s their thesis, then why do they bother with the signs in the first place?

I don’t understand the sloppiness I see with so many signs. Misspellings. Bad grammar. Lame jokes. But one of the worst I’ve ever seen I spotted last week. Can you see the problem?

The signs ordered me, in no uncertain terms to stay off the grass. (In fact, you can’t15-04-10b-detail see this here but there were about a dozen such flags dotted all along the edges of the lawn. They’d multiplied like rabbits.) Then there was also a (competing) sign urging me to take a copy of the landscape company’s flyer. But you couldn’t reach the flyer unless you walked on the grass!

I know the company’s marketing department wasn’t responsible for the mixed message. Undoubtedly it was a gardener (perhaps one who doesn’t speak English as a first language) who made the wrong-headed decision. But the company should have been able to predict this, and should have trained its staff better.

I’ve obscured the name of the company for legal reasons but I can assure them that I’d never hire them to work on my garden (if I had a need for such services) because it’s clear they don’t handle their training properly. I’d worry about a gardener getting hurt.

Isn’t it interesting to consider the power of signage?

 

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