How not to design a sign

Posted on Jul 16, 2009 in Design | 2 comments

A real (ugly) sign.

On a walk this evening I noticed this gem of a sign. While I am a proponent of gun- and drug-free schools, I disapprove of ugly, poorly-designed signs. This sign is a card-carrying member of that group.

The first thing I noticed was the red Ghostbuster-style circle indicating that this district is firmly against the terrible “drug gun.”

Putting both words in the same circle really confuses the message. There’s room to put two smaller circles with one word each, which would then show each word struck through with a red line, rather than this oddity. And shouldn’t those be plural? “Drugs” and “guns” are not allowed.

Looking further down it (kind of) makes sense. It’s a drug- and gun-free zone! Oh, that does make sense… but the sign doesn’t convey that message well. The large “free zone” at the bottom feels too separated from the words “drug” and “gun” that modify “free zone.” And if you do read the sign as it’s drawn, you’d have something like “a no gun or drug”-free zone… a bit of a double negative there.

Okay, so I’m pushing this a bit far. It’s unlikely anyone would really be confused as to the intent of this sign. But it certainly isn’t graceful or well designed when it easily could have been (starting with unifying the typeface and size, but I won’t go there).

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