A WISE man once told me there was no point in writing something if it could not be easily read.
The subject of this rant is truly ridiculous signage, where ignorant people go to the trouble of putting up signs that are never going to be fully comprehended.
One of the clearest signs I’ve seen recently was a great big billboard put up by Clive Palmer to promote his political party.
“Freedom Freedom Freedom” was hugely printed across the top with a subsidiary message underneath.
I don’t agree with the big fella but I really love his billboard because it puts the message across clearly and simply in a way that can be instantly understood.
There is a takeaway shop in Logan which is a living, breathing example of all that is wrong with signage today.
When you walk in you are confronted by three huge electronic screens hanging from the ceiling that promote the fare, complete with videos of burgers and fish’n’chips.
It probably cost the people behind Bundy’s Burger’s a fortune but there’s a problem.
On the centre screen there’s a menu, black type on a white background, probably a dozen or so items stacked one under the other but the screen changes really quickly and I don’t care how fast you can read, there’s no way you could take in everything in the time allowed.
There’s an acre of space between each description and its price on the right hand side of the screen with no dots to lead the eye, no lightweight line underneath, so it’s hard to connect the two parts of the message.
There’s a chalkboard on the side wall with the menu items tightly packed but legible.
The owner has printed A4 and A3 size signs with one menu item on each and stuck them to the walls and onto the waist-high part of the counter, which means customers have a multitude of confusing options to consider when one really clear message would be far better.
We all know there are rules for just about everything today, including what you can and can’t do in Hyperdome car parks.
Immediately after you turn the corner into one of that huge edifice’s access roads there’s a sign, around 40cm wide and less than a metre high.
On it are printed hundreds of words detailing the abovementioned rules.
It’s a two-lane access road with no provision for anyone to stop, park and read the words on the sign.
I guess one could park one’s car, walk back to the sign and read but who would bother?
The sign must be there to fulfil some legal requirement to get the centre off the hook if someone does something dastardly in the car park.
Is there an overall solution to today’s bastardry perpetrated by multiplying examples of degenerate signage?
Maybe signwriters should be held responsible for their misdeeds, which would encourage them to educate their clients.
But don’t hold your breath, it’s far too easy to assail our senses with written stupidity, with absolutely no consequences.
