rubbish signs #17

After an age, it's the return of rubbish signs. It's not technically a park if water fights aren't allowed. And I don't care what the secretary of state says. Thanks very much to Rishi!

rubbish signs 16

This is stencilled all over the pavements near where I live in south-east London. I was minded to include it as a rubbish sign after reading a voxpop in Design Week about how design can help to reduce the litter caused by fast food packaging. Like they said, no amount of graphics and messaging will stop people disposing of their rubbish in the wrong way. Which is one of the reasons why this is a rubbish sign. On the one hand it makes innocent, ambling pedestrians think about dog poo - too often. And on the other, judging by the walk to the cafe today, it clearly hasn't persuaded very many dog owners to bag it and bin it. Bleurgh.

rubbish signs 15

From now on I shall try to only walk past scaffolding that announces its own completeness.

rubbish signs 14

I'm guessing that bag thief and coat thief are two entirely separate occupations...maybe there's a career ladder?

rubbish signs 13

Or simply "mind the step"?

rubbish signs 12

After a bit of a hiatus, it's an (un)welcome return for rubbish signs. I've seen this ad, promoting the Guardian's writing series, up in train stations for ages but I haven't managed to place what I felt was wrong with it. I was perplexed, because I really like their design-centric approach to communications...I think it was in Creative Review where I read an interesting piece last year about their approach to being a content brand and how they try to remove any suggestion of positioning in favour of clean, neutral reportage. (It's a nice idea, complete bobbins when you have the actual product in your hands or on your screen of course. More thoughts on content brands soon-ish.) Then, on my way back from the pub last night, it came to me. This ad's all about words, right? And whoever has done it has deliberately, conspicuously, made a choice to avoid any punctuation throughout, bar the apostrophes where you need them. Which is fine. But that's why the ampersand on the last line annoys me like you wouldn't believe. I'm probably just too pedantic. Bah!

rubbish signs 11

Because that's how we do in my hood.

rubbish signs 10

Clunky sentence lays waste to important sentiment: "Working together with residents at Lewisham Park to create places where people want to live." The tautology of "together with" drowns it in business speak, but a bit of crafting could have polished this up nicely. Lots of developers and big-business building types seem to get these messages wrong...I wish they had insisted on making it personal and personable enough to make this ambition feel more credible.

rubbish signs 9

It's been a while since I posted one of these, and this one (for a bar off Leadenhall Market) is so bad I feel a bit crap posting it. But it's easy to do whilst my macbook is out of commission. Planet of the Grapes. Tsk.

rubbish signs 8

"Date set for pink shop decision". Genius. Thanks very much to Rob!

rubbish signs 7

This Evening Standard headline from last week would be hilarious, were it not for the fact that real people's lives are at the heart of it. So shall we meet our contestants?

rubbish signs 6

Is this actually a rubbish sign - or a brilliantly dry, ironic dry cleaning message? It says: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the best service drop your trousers here."

rubbish signs 5

Spotted in a butcher's shop on a weekend in Bath.

rubbish signs #2

rubbish signs #1