FINAL PHASE!

I wish I could meet the creator of this sign.  He seems to be working off a neat combo of inspirations, including the look of the Plutonian Oglethorpe from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:

and the typographical style of Barbara Kruger:

I have to admit, though, the sign does not inspire confidence.  It's just a bit too much of a hard sell, right?  And as fun as it is, it is not exactly well executed.  Note the 2 different shades of yellow -- the text's background a bit more greenish, for some reason, than the background field of yellow.  Maybe there was some different text on the sign before that's been painted over?    Also, I don't exactly understand what "FINAL PHASE!" means (?).  Final phase of what?  Can't be "construction" -- the building looks to have been built several years ago.  Maybe just "renting" or "selling"?  It's clear that the "final" part is supposed to be hurrying me, yet I just don't feel the time pressure on this one. And honestly, if I were even considering renting one of these condos, I think I would delay in order to prolong this awesome sign's adornment of my neighborhood.

Please consider drinking something other than booze

These signs were up at my 5th Yale reunion over the weekend on tables with bottled water and soda.  They made me laugh.  I guess they were a gesture to the non-drinkers (thin on the ground) in attendance?  "See, even though this entire weekend is structured around various opportunities to consume excesses of alcohol, we are aware you tee-totalling nerds are out there and we mean for you to feel respected and included."  Although doesn't going to a separate table to get non-alcoholic drinks make someone who's not drinking stand out more?  I do think this was outreach actually not just to non-drinkers but to the attendees who were thirsty and might otherwise have decided just to have a beer and a result get even drunker than they themselves had ever intended, thought possible, or dreamed of.

But what made me laugh was how the sign read to me first, which was simply as a desperate appeal to all the drunk people to PLEASE switch from alcohol to something that would make them act a little less ridiculous.  The sign can read kind of like a trick, with its classic Yale white-shoe tone ("please" printed small and in italics, avoiding an unseemly self-abasement by the institutional speaker, and distanced from the subsequent entreaty with an ellipse that allows the sign's dapper manners to sink in; "help yourself" with its pleasant whiff of some sweet hostess's chiming voice; "refreshment"'s Gatsbyesque ring, almost preparing one to be offered fizzy fresh-squeezed lemonade rather than Sprite and Yale-brand water) insinuating itself into its reader's subconscious where it creates the civilized mood conducive to catalyzing a turn off the path of increasing inebriation.

But as funny as a misreading of this sign was, I can't fault the sign itself for any actual gaffe.  Yale's official signage is never anything less than absurdly perfect and beautiful in every way.  Its publications never contain any typos.  Yale Blue is copyrighted.  There is a Yale font (which is a really good-looking font).  Ah, Yale.  It was good to be back among its lovely signs.

No sitting on the front

I saw this sign on the door of an apartment building in my neighborhood and thought it was brilliant.

I like how its maker chose not to be hampered by the typical expressions and iconography of all the non-loitering sign-makers who had gone before.  This sign is on a street where many buildings have simple plastic "NO LOITERING / NO CONGREGAR" signs on them, so the sign-maker must have been familiar with the usual style.

But first and foremost, he/she decided to eschew the word "loitering" and go with a definition of the undesirable activity: "sitting on the front."  Really, that description is so accurate and captures what it is about loitering that is so bad for a building's ambience.  You don't want people "sitting on the front" of your building.  People need to get by, and people on the front there are in the way and unsightly.  The awkwardness of the formulation "on the front" somehow captures the unsightliness of loiterers.

I wonder if the person making the sign was concerned that its viewers didn't know the word "loiter" and that therefore a description was necessary.  Or maybe he/she thought "loitering" had been over-used and lost its authority.  This vernacular phrasing, to me, seems to come more from the heart, and makes me want to respect it more (not that I was about to sit on the front of this building).  But it makes me think of a person behind it, rather than of some grim, bossy institution, which "NO LOITERING" signs typically do.

The phrasing of the prohibition, too, is so gentle and self-fulfilling.  It issues itself like a proclamation, so grandly--and is so civilized both in its implication that the courtesy of "further notice" will be involved in updating us of future changes in policy, and in the suggestion that there is some latitude for a progressive openness to considering the possible permissibleness of sitting on the front.

Finally, I LOVE that an illustration has been provided (sorry, quality is bad):

 It looks to me to be a photo of several college kids hanging out on the steps to a dorm or something, possibly lifted off of an admissions website.  How hilarious is that?  The kids in the photo were probably meant to be adorable and here this sign has put them in a different context and their activity in a different light that says "this is obnoxious."

I have never seen anyone sitting on the front of this building.


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