A Sign of the Times

A reflection on how informed considerations in designing even the smallest of objects like those of signboards and banners in a public space can entirely alter the essence of a city

Imphal: I have a theory regarding signboards and development. By development, I’m referring to socioeconomic development that is indicated by among other things, the quality of life, levels of literacy and job opportunities. So, the more developed a region is, the better are its neighbourhood shops and stores’ signboards and vice versa. 

Please allow me to explain.

If you stroll around here in any neighbourhood in this part of the world, you will see all sorts of signboards. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I was out in the street near my house, which is located a stone’s throw away from the highway in Sagolband along NH37. The street has been deserted because of the ongoing Covid restrictions and when you look around randomly, there is hardly anything that catches your attention; except for all the great sense of nothingness created by familiarity of the place. Albeit it is generally used in the context of human relationships, any kind of familiarity does desensitise our capacity of awareness and appreciation. Geoffrey Chaucer captured the feelings succinctly by stating that it breeds contempt.

Even if that is the case, an interest in visual communication has offered new perspectives on observing almost anything visual including the familiar things, particularly when it comes to design. When I was just walking around I cannot help but observe the unattractive signboards and banners that come in a few kinds. Mostly, acrylic, aluminum composite panel (ACP) and flex are used for tutorial/coaching centres, a popular local football club (Sagolband United), rice hotels all over the place.

Meantime, across the world, the flex banners—that are made of polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC) and which, according to Greenpeace, is the most environmentally damaging plastic—has been banned because of health and environmental concerns yet it is apparently one of those rules, which is meant for everybody but applies to nobody. For a town that is infamous for its challenges with civic sense, it is no surprise that everyone from printmakers and printers to the public still uses this material.

This flex matter is one hint that as much as the neighbourhood shops and stores’ signboards are better in a developed region, the exact opposite is true in a region struggling to catch up with the times. 

The Signs  

These ubiquitous boards and banners are not meant to be just the names of a business; rather they have several visual functions which are why they exist in the first place. And this is truer for a brick-and-mortar business. To put it in simple terms, a business needs strategic branding and one of the first steps is to promote its image through a board or a banner. If done well, a distinctive board can help attract customers and draw them into its shop. A design can also help the business in communicating with its existing and potential customers, especially in how the latter perceives the quality of the product or the service.  

Evidently there is a lack of awareness among both business owners and the public. Their dealing is not confined only to buying and selling but as things stand today, it has been merely reduced to that particular transaction. Owners are okay as long as they have a board like everyone else and the customers are happy as long as the shops are open particularly during the curfew hours. No surprise then that our physical environment is flooded with designs in eye-hurting primary colours and with uninspiring words in Arials and Times New Romans.

Later, in the evening, a friend pointed out that it must be the cost factor; perhaps it is, but it cannot be a reason why we have substandard boards consistently all over the neighbourhood. Unlike how printing was all screen and offset a little more than a decade ago, nowadays digital printing has democratised the way we have access to all kinds of high quality visual media at a lower cost. For instance, we can get a top-class acrylic ACP board, which is weather resistant, easy to install and above all, visually appealing from a printer in a day’s time. Depending on the finishing and surface quality, your specific requirements and which printer you go to, you just have to shell out only ₹200 to ₹500 per square feet.

Getting a board or a banner is a one-time investment. The effort is worth it and in the same breath, I must add that in no way am I endorsing gentrification here. More than anything else, this write-up is about aesthetic appreciation and simple steps to make improvement. It is also about saving the neighbourhoods from unintentional vandalism by business owners and design contractors with their terrible boards all over the walls. And this is where the theoretical concept of design comes into the picture.  

Image ① Credit: The Subtitle European Film Festival

The Good and the Bad

Remember any film from the West set in a European countryside? The hero is taking refuge, s/he has to finish off a master-villain but for the moment, it is the middle of the film, the pace has slowed down and s/he is taking things slowly in that leisurely place. If you recall, in that kind of place, you must have also seen minimal boards and banners. 

For now I cannot find an exact image/scene/still from this kind of a film but Image ① is very close. Now, differentiate it from Image ②. A superficial glance tells us about one major issue: the ignorance about using design elements in Image ②. This is too obvious from the use or rather the misuse of space, colour palette and typefaces. 

Firstly, even among graphic designers, many newbies commit this sin of using up all the available space on a canvas or an artboard. White space is compulsory at any cost.  On the other hand, the name in Image ① is prominent and we can say right away that it is a grocery store. It uses two complimentary typefaces, has enough breathing space and the overall design is clean, minimal and organised.   

Now, Image ② again. Unless it is in textbooks for kids aged between 5–10, the use of primary colours literally hurts our eyes. And when it comes to typography, the first thing any expert gives us is to limit our typeface choice to one or two to get rid of chaotic, cluttered design. No breathing space, use of multiple fonts that are not even complimentary, jarring colours, too much unnecessary information—you can find all the things-not-to-do in Image ②.

Out of Space 

If only there was a proper use of space, things would have been entirely different. Just to emphasize, what we see now is that in any board, for example for grocery stores, owners tend to mention everything that is available in their store as if people check it before entering their stores. Besides the names of the store, they will as well mention half of the stuffs that are up for sale, a list of the food items that can be made from their grocery items, their mothers’ photo, the name of the MLA of their constituency, the full address of the store, a list of promises made by Modi, the latest figures of the Covid infections plus the number of fatalities and so on!

In the last couple of decades, there has also been a dangerous trend that the Manipuris have picked up from mainland India. This has nothing to do with the stores and shops but a lot with the natives’ design sensibilities. The trend is the use of glittering and gaudy light system that is fitted extensively during social events and festivals. It is worth mentioning that the uninspiring style of using up all available space is quite a common sight in many parts of the mainland, including the so-called metropolitan areas. 

When I was strolling around, I cannot help but remember the disco lights (that’s what we used to call the fairy lights in our childhood days), which are fitted on the trees along the Kangla Pat. Every year, during the government-funded Sangai tourism fest, Imphal is fully decked up and the garish disco lights are the epitome of beauty. If that is the standard of aesthetics set by the highest authority in the town, either we can be hopeful that we have so much room for improvement or give up the discussions on the significance of public space. 

The Definition of Solution

In visual communication, design thinking is a conscious approach of finding solutions to a problem and the first thing a designer must do is to understand the end users in general and their requirements in specific. Obviously, this can be applied to designing boards and banners, and for that matter, to any kind of design. Still it has been mentioned here to point out that the concept is also used widely in a discipline like urban planning, in which architecture and infrastructure are created and developed in human-centric ways and likewise that system benefits the public optimally.

With careful considerations, the landscape can change dramatically in favour of the public if the planning starts from the top. Nowadays, we have been also familiarised with the idea of a smart city, with the the federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs announcing the Smart Cities Mission, with one of its objectives to “promote cities that provide core infrastructure, clean and sustainable environment and give a decent quality of life to their citizens through the application of ‘smart solutions’”. Now, Imphal is more of an atro-City than a smart city.

Conclusion

A signboard might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Yet its quality or the lack of it depends on the economic condition of the place. In other words, we cannot simply ignore the correlations between cities becoming smart and designs enhancing the aesthetic appeal of a neighbourhood. When design thinking is applied to the foundation of a city, the structure will definitely be able to address its challenges. Similarly, when the structure is made up of elements created with the philosophy of design thinking, the foundation will further be solidified. 

Then, of course, we have several design solutions that are of high grades and low price these days. ▨ 

 

Breathing space saves us from design suffocation

Read:

Typography Is Rock n’ Roll
12 Ways to Approach Design Scientifically
Design in the Time of War 3.0
Meitei Mayek Typography: Geometreeyek
minimalism: 20 essential quotes & ideas

 

---

FUN FACT    Once in the middle of a lecture on semiotics, I got an alliteration that made me low-key proud: Saussure was so sure about signs, signifiers, and signified in semiotics and semiology.

---