Friday, April 12, 2013

Madvertising (part 3)

When people put up signs, they expect you to read them. They spend hundreds if not thousands of hours, and at least that much money, to come up with something designed to draw your attention to it. Colors, lighting, font style, logos. All designed to stand out and catch your eye. It doesn't matter how many signs there are in a given area, they may not expect you to look at every one of them, but everybody who posts one expects you to look at theirs, process the information on it and then take some sort of action. That's why most roadways look like this:
And this:

If the signs weren't there, including the handy directional/informative ones the government puts up, it would look like this:
And this:

And of course, none of this takes into account the guy screaming at you on the radio while you're driving.
What's my point? Well, I guess if I had one, it would be that while I think that texting and driving is a bad idea, I think it's a little disingenuous to act like distracted driving is a new thing and that if people just stop texting, it won't be a problem anymore.

1 comment:

Perry Block said...

I agree, especially the digital signs that change every few minutes. And the signs for the men's clubs and adult book places. And the signs for wherever the hell it is you have to go that you've never been before.

Who has time to text?