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Signage is important. Used correctly it is informative, saves lives by highlighting possible dangers, shows people the direction they need to take, and is generally very helpful. However, when there’s something wrong with your signage, whether it’s a spelling mistake, an inaccuracy, bad placement or bad luck, then people will notice… for all the wrong reasons!
We thought it would be fun to go online and find some of the funniest signage fails. (Don’t worry they’re all clean!) They’ll make you giggle and, importantly, they’ll also make you realise how important it is to get your signage right! We are linking to all the images and hope it’ll add some sparkle to your day.
1. This council worker clearly wasn’t paying attention to the signage outside his or her school that they would have walked past every day they were at school!
2. You can click to view the kind of subtle misdirection even a top magician would be proud of! Let’s hope pedestrians remembered their Green Cross Code and looked both ways anyway.
3. Yes, well… if you’re going to claim you’re great, you could at least make sure you ask someone to proofread your boast before shouting it out to the world.
4. Placement is everything. Even if you’re 100% certain your signage is correct, you’ve got to employ someone who engages their brain when they put it up.
5. People get really hot under the collar about sign writers who randomly make up new months, as Oxfordfordshire County Council found out.
6. There’s no point in telling people not to do something that’s impossible anyway!
7. Another positioning problem here, though this is mainly due to the inattentiveness (or sense of humour) of the maintenance department.
8. Public safety is absolutely vital, so it’s imperative you make sure that your signage isn’t misleading in any way!
9. Sometimes signs do not translate properly. A company in Wales emailed a translation company to ask for the Welsh for ’No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.’ They got a reply and assumed it was the translation – it wasn’t. It was a Welsh out-of-office message…
10. And then of course, a simple typo can totally change the meaning of your sign. Can you imagine how easy it would be to dispute parking fines with this notice?
If you’d like to make sure that you have high-quality signage that has clear and unambiguous instructions, check out our quality stock signage. Whilst we can guarantee the quality of the signs, it’s then up to you to make sure they’re placed where they won’t cause confusion… or hilarity!
