Follow the Road Signs
Peter Sumpton
Marketing Consultant in Construction and Education | Effective marketing strategy and creative that produces long-lasting success | Fun Fact: Colouring competition winner (aged 8), didn’t get to celebrate ?? guess why?
All Roads (Signs) Lead to Good Design Work!
If you are looking for inspiration for great, simplistic design then look no further than the roads of Great Britain!
Drivers Beware
As soon as most of us sit in the drivers seat, ready to brave whatever is set out in front of us on our journey (whether it is 5 minutes or 3 hours - remembering to take the appropriate breaks) a sensation of fear may wash over us as the realisation that their is very little we can do about other road users actions. But fear not, the trusty British road sign is here to guide you successfully to your desired destination - and how we rely on them, so much so that we could be forgiven for taking them for granted.
Sign, Sealed, Delivered
If you consider what a road sign is there to do, it is a fairly simple hypothesis - provide road users with relevant information, in a prompt, effective manor that will assist drivers in getting to or finding a specific destination in a safe and methodical manor. They are not over engineered, they don't need to be. A team of specialists hasn't spent millions on a year long study of what colours will mean to male or female drivers, the young and old, as the general utilisation of bold colours speaks for itself (as does their shape), simply:
Red = Warning
White = Directional
Brown = Places of Interest
...and so on. If they were to be over engineered then this would happen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wac3aGn5twc
STOP: Technology
With technology ever enhancing our driving experience, road signs have changed very little, still using simple images and messages that are 'fit for purpose'. Even the wording used (in general) hasn't changed much, using the analogy that drivers have approximately 6 seconds to digest a road sign and thus no more than 6-8 words are usually used to portray important messages. They are also all printed in a specific typeface and (unless on a motorway) are in lowercase as the human brain finds it easier to disseminate this type of writing than uppercase.
Read and Learn
We can learn a lot from the humble road sign, it is not trying to be something it isn't or bamboozle road users with to much information, simply providing the right information, at the right time to the right audience in the easiest way possible.
Something that good designs always takes into consideration.
Finally
Why use 6-8 words when 40 will do? Read this, or try to in 6 seconds:
