Here’s the Nine O’Clock Gun in Vancouver’s Stanley Park
The cannon, safe inside a cage, fires every night at 9:00. And there are warning signs, of course. One is fairly straightforward
And the other looks like a parody example of Bad Visual Design.
Although the entire sign is hideous, confusing, hilarious yet disturbing, the bad copy, perhaps to cross cultures, is my (for lack of a better word) favorite. I love the phrase “Very Loud Please Cover Ears!” — note that the unnecessary quotes are actually included in the copy. It trumps the bad colors, the confusing icons, and the abysmal visual flow. I picture some bureaucrat, for whom English is not a first language, shouting out the copy to the sign designer, who took it down verbatim. Although just a comma would help a lot, but it still just reads embarrassingly wrong.
See more of my Vancouver 2009 pictures here.
Tags: 9, cannon, communication, copy, design, gun, sign, stanley park, vancouver, visual, warning
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