The sign project
Description
A sign has been created, mimicking the information that is usually displayed on such mediums. These types of signs are usually in public places, displaying information that maybe be important to the surrounding peoples safety, because of road works, building construction, or other dangers. These signs are normally brightly coloured, using colours that cant be ignored eg: red, bright yellow acting as waring signals.
Aim:
The aim of this project is to see how people actually respond to such signs, and if the signs are actually paid any attention. But due to the amount of these kinds of signs out in public and type of graphic style, people do seem to ignore them. My take on this was to make something within the same vain except using an image or idea that isn’t normally used. The idea is that I can place such a sign in an environment where it may blend in, and see if people may notice the difference between a real warning sign, or something comical.
Sign placement 1:
At 10:14 am, 14th April
Placement location: Corner of Flinders lane and Elizabeth street
Environment: The area where I had placed this sign was appropriate as it is already covered in warning signs.
Results:
45 minutes had lapsed during my first observation, and it seems that maybe the sign had blended in too well. Almost no-one passing during this time had seemed to have noticed it. People would stand at the corner, waiting for the lights to change but still, no response. I feel that either people do see it, but ignore it and don’t see the humour behind it or people don’t actually see it due to its environment.
I had noticed that kids mostly aged between 5-15 were the ones that mostly noticed it.
I am not sure whether it is their ways to perceive things and actually look around for visually stimulating things or “I just placed it at their hight”.
Sign Placement 2:
At 10:50 am
Location:
Corner of Elizabeth street and Collins street
(behind a pedestrians sign)
Environment:
It seems that when people are in a hurry, people mostly don’t look around, they generally just see what’s in-front of them. I also wanted to know if people do actually watch where they are going apart from just avoiding other people.
I had placed it where people would have to look, next to a pointing “pedestrian” sign.
Results:
Perhaps due to the direct placement of the sign in front of people, they tend to see it a lot more then they did before, but people don’t really stop to look at it. As it’s a sign that in almost a feet level, a lot of people don’t notice, most just look directly ahead as I had mentioned. It did bring some smiles to peoples faces, this was probably the biggest indicator seeing if people actually saw it and responded in some way.
To some, it was such a distraction that it caught people off guard, by looking around and noticing the sign, someone kept walking and looking, to almost trip on something. This tells me that signs may also do the opposite to what they are supposed to do. Instead of informing someone of a danger, it may distract them from it.
Sign Placement 3:
At 11:25 am, 14th April
Location: Out the front of flinders street station (the stairs)
Environment:
On a maintenance fence in front of flinders street station, placed around head height just off a narrow corridor from finders street shops and the temporary fence that follows all the way to Swanston street.
Results:
Although, there were distractions near by that may have caught peoples attention more then this petty sign, such as road works going on and change collectors for sick children. People also ignored the change collectors, just as much as my sign (so it didn’t make me feel so bad) apart from the fact that those people shouldn’t have been ignored.
I guess it just shows what people wish to actually pay attention to, which is usually just what they are doing and where they are going, (which I believe there is a theory behind why people don’t notice much of what is around them… I may go into this later.)
The same results as before really? People see it, but don’t wish to pay any attention to it, as its something of no importance to them. Mainly younger people would stop and look and sometimes take pictures.
Conclusion:
I think the city in general is a difficult area to try and get peoples attention, as you are competing with a massive amount of media that happens to have a lot more BRAND power then what you can produce. In this kind of environment, people mainly will only pay attention to things that are important to them or things they may want. My understanding of this would be that if people noticed and paid attention to everything, people wouldn’t be going anywhere, but would appear to be zombies, slowly stumbling around everywhere. This in Itself is a danger, as people would no longer pay attention to things that threaten them. (which may be a brain function that only restricts us to perceiving things in direct importance to us at those given times).
