INTERESANTE

themselves the only people in the world who didn’t need signs to find their way around down there

I’m still trapped in this conference room.

So if I can’t get out, I’ll make life for this sign as difficult as possible. I’ll put it on the floor, leaning against the wall, then I’ll take ten paces away and see how it looks. I’ll stand practically alongside it and see if it catches my eye. I’ll stride by it at my normal pace and see if it registers. I’ll turn down the lights. If the sign doesn’t work in an imperfect world, it doesn’t work. Believe me, real life is even tougher on signs than I am.

We’re now arriving at a state of communication overload, and most of the problem is due to commercial messages. Little advertising stickers stuck to your apples and pears are either the cleverest thing ever or the most obnoxious defacement of god’s bounty, depending on your point of view. There are too many words tellings us too many things, and people are getting mad as hell and they’re not going to read it any more. Even as some opportunities for communication are being missed, many are being cluttered with so many messages that none stands out. One display or sign too many and you’ve created a black hole where no communication manages to get through.

Here`s a personal example. I spend a lot of time waiting for planes in airports, and like most road warriors I work while I wait. Lately, though, my concentration is always being broken by airport network- the CNN – produced programming for air travelers. Try as I might, I can’t find a way to have it turned off (a few years ago, I saw advertised online something that its maker claimed would allow you to turn off any public TV set, but every time I tried to log on to the site, it was down). Even when I’m the only person in the lounge, it must remain on. And so I quietly burn and vow never to watch CNN again. But there is a place in airports where even the busiest traveler stands around dumbly waiting rather than working: Near the baggage carousel, praying for luggage. There, before the suitcases begin troll, we’re all grateful to get a little Wolf Blitzer.

In general, the state of commercial messages is haphazard. Half all signs that are shipped to stores, bankas and restaurants never even make it onto the floor, according to on study. All over America, retail managers en long, tiring days by sittings in storage rooms, unloading huge cartons of signs and other point-of-purchase materials sent by a merchandising manager who may never even have seen their particular store. Believe me, those tired, overworked store managers aren’t agonizing for too long over which sign goes where.

Once I went to a sales meeting of one of the world’s largest manufacturers of carbonated beverages at which they ran a competition be tween different display manufacturers: How fast could they set up their point-of- purchase display designed for the front aisle of a supermarket? It was pretty comical. The teams were a bunch of twentysomethings clad in Ralph Lauren chinos and oxford shirts with the name of the company embroidered across their chests. The fastest time clocked was about three minutes. When asked for my commentary, I suggested they run the same competition at midnight, when the same teams had been working for twelve hours straight- oh, and it had to happen in a crowded back room under the lousiest possible lighting.

Conversely, once

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