Saturday, December 1, 2007

No shopping carts

We did some shopping today, mostly for christmas. At the entrance to Toys "R" Us there's this sign that seems to say "No shopping carts." Being obviously untrue, I approached. Its like something out of a Tufte book. The repeated, easily identifiable item -- the shopping cart -- is by far the most bold item. The "no" slash is always thru the cart, and hardly touches the case that is bad about it. Much lighter, so you cannot see it at any distance, are the variable items, the child. And sometimes the parent, but bisecting the white circle, I didn't even notice her till I got home and opened the picture. I also like how the labels are impossibly tiny (the bottom of the large sign is above head height) impossible to scan, and way too wordy. And how some have consequences, like "this may cause the cart to tip over." But what will happen if I let my child push the cart? I don't know! Okay, National Treasure sucks, so I went ahead and did it they way I think it should have been. Note I kept most of their drawing style even. The cart is gray, as its iconic, and repeated often. The heavy prohibition slashed circle was removed in favor of the simple X. Let me put it over the prohibited part, implying a specific location or activity, instead of implying everything about the situation is wrong. The parent figure is only present when needed to show she's not paying attention; otherwise it might have been lost in the clutter. And, the titles were changed to be shorter, and the "Do not" part is on another line to make the instruction component scanable. Though now that I look at them, the capitalization is nonsensical; it scans well, but doesn't make sense. Hmm... There were two additional images, and a title block above, but I didn't get them in the photo. So, its still incomplete, sure. I believe one graphic was how to use it right. In this case, I like green circles to say "do it this way."

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