More cartoon icons please

 

I took this photo in a plane WC a few years ago. If only all warning signs could emote like this. 

Awesome, 1950s style

Forget awesome and mind-blowing... we all know that interesting and amusing is as much as we can hope for most of the time.

Can't you read?

 

It's an internet meme, I know, but I can't resist. 

Jubilatte

I do like a pun in a business name. Hairdressers do it best of course (Scissor's Palace, Curl Up and Dye, Hairport, Headmasters, etc).

But this church in King's Heath, Birmingham, is having a go, and I recently saw Triniteas on offer at another one...

Toot

In a taxi in Istanbul a year or two back I was impressed by the driver’s light (and more or less constant) touch on the horn. He was able to produce a light toot as a gentle prod, or a savage blast when necessary.

I’ve long wanted a set of horn buttons - a gentle toot to say hi to a friend I’ve spotted, or ‘I’m outside your house’. A klaxon to say ‘Oi, you just cut me up’, a loud but cheery one to say ‘watch out I’m coming round the corner’. 

Now Ineos have done exactly this on their new off-roader, the Grenadier. Brilliant.

But I still want some drum pads on the steering wheel to play along with the radio.

Kind hearted copy

 

I love this kindly take on 'keep away from kids'.

10.30am

This sign outside a church in Bath shows good design thinking. 

It's on a busy road but drivers might glance across.

We know it's a church. We know they meet on Sundays. The only thing that's worth saying legibly enough to be read at a glance is '10.30am'. And the sheer size of it gives a strong affordance of 'you're invited'.

Dan Dare is 70

The comic book character Dan Dare is 70 this year. If you don't know of him, ask a sixty-something year old Brit who read Eagle comic as a child.

Here's my Dan Dare pop-up book:

Clive Richards has a theory that James Dyson's industrial design is entirely inspired by Dan Dare's spaceship.

Friendly prohibitions

I love a friendly sign, when you're in a friendly place like a garden. 

On not jumping to conclusions

We thought it pretty odd to find a You Are Here map just outside the gents at Pisa airport. But then we noticed the tactile path leading to it. It's a 3D map for people with sight impairment. So pretty good.

Maybe

Don't you just love a decisive notice? Seen on a recent trip to Margate.

 

What 3 TVs

If you try to choose a TV you could find yourself comparing the merits of a LG 55UN80006LA, Samsung UE50TU8507UXXU or a Sony KD55XH8096BU. Or how about a Panasonic TX-50HX580B?

You have no hope of retaining any of these model names in your head. So how are you supposed to think through your decision, read reviews and find the model online, or check where the cheapest price is. You can cut and paste and search, but the algorithms are ahead of you and insert other models into the search results.

The electronics industry could learn from What3words. This is the brilliant app that assigns a unique set of three random words to each 3m square of the planet. So GPS co-ordinates 51.520847, -0.19552100 become filled.count.soap.

You could ask... why not just give the GPS coordinates? Well just try reading those out accurately when you're calling mountain rescue. What3words is a brilliant tool that understands that most humans can remember words a lot better than they remember numbers. It's information design, actually.

So I look forward to the day when I can choose my next TV that way. How about a Panasonic boot.fidget.balloon or a Samsung stapler.butterfly.fruitcake?

Seriously, which of these is the easiest to remember?

Social distancing for musicians

Seen at Dawkes Music in Maidenhead:

Gender neutral icons

Classic Isotype charts are sometimes referred to as 'rows of little men'. But how could we instead show rows of little persons?

I love this gender neutral icon which Tesco are using in their supermarkets. Just by stretching the arms out a little, it allows people of any gender identity to see themselves in it - it could be wearing a dress (or have wider hips) or perhaps its arms are just positioned like this.

The Noun Project has various other attempts:

The one on the left by Dan Brunsdon is typical of solutions which just combine icons - not so much gender neutral as both-genders. 

 I quite like the right hand one by James Walker, with its suggestion of hips.

Excited by a door bell (I know, I know)

This blog is temporarily converting to a consumer review site (today only).

I just bought a new door bell - not just any door bell. Because both of us work in outbuildings, we kept missing callers, and wireless door bells didn't have enough range. This one is wifi connected, so it rings on your phone wherever you are. And then there's a camera and a mike.

So a builder called while I was in Birmingham, and I could speak to him. Freaked him out when my voice appeared, but we got over that. Actually, this looks like being an issue with some of the other brands which have very obvious cameras, but just don't look like door bells. This one is branded 'ring', which also works as an instruction, of course.

It's very expensive for a door bell but brilliant. And what branding people call the 'out of box experience' was great too.

They gave me all the tools I need, down to the bubble thing to make sure I installed it level. And the app was equally good.

A better class of lost and found

As you'd expect, you get a better class of lost and found notices in a leading art school. This from the Royal College of Art notice board.

It's behind you

I'm not sure why backwards pointing arrows are so rare - like these ones on a flight information display at Helsinki Airport.

If you don't know where something is, it is only by chance that you might be facing in the right direction when you look for it on a sign.

Usually it is the absence of an obvious destination that tells you it is not in the direction you are facing. So you have to turn around and look for it on another sign, or, in the case of a hanging sign, look on the other side to see if it is listed there.

News from Brighton

I'm very late discovering this great collection of news stand posters from the Brighton Argus (last updated several years ago. It's clearly where life happens - makes you want to go and live there. Thanks to David Woodward for the link.

Olympics retrospective

Quite a few of us are still puzzled by that logo. Graffiti concept - great. Execution of the concept - not so great. I rather like the one the New York Times used for its Olympics coverage.

Is it the one that got away?

Incidentally, their Olympics blog, by Campbell Robertson, included this nice quote:

'...Visa went too far. Not only was it the only credit card accepted at venues, signs on every cash register read, “We are proud to accept only Visa,” a slogan of doublespeak so hideous its originator deserves a back of the hand from Don Draper.'

Guerilla signs on the underground

Thanks to Gill Ereaut for pointing me to this. There's loads more on The Poke. I'll now be paying more attention to notices on tube trains.