Seat Smoking

A retro fit window sticker in a vintage 1966 double decker bus.  Original notices of that era tended to be on plaques or printed directly on surfaces.  While the sticker is a more modern method it's still quit old as the vintage hint is still there, with the reference to "in the seats", a particular turn of phrase.  

There's some tempting literal interpretation possible here too.  "Seats" here is about the seating area, so no smoking in the seating area please.  Rather that to mean the inside the fabric or construction of any of the individual seats which is then described in the plural....those seats would not have been of modern fire retardant standard......

Looks like there's been some attempts to remove it, a possible recent recognition of it's rather surplus status with a modern accepted default of no smoking in inside public spaces.

Go to the bar

There's a rather fantastic collection of home made slot machines to be found on the pier at Southwold in Suffolk.

Given their uniqueness and their acknowledged temperamental nature, there's a sign to use the intercom for assistance.  That's supplemented by a delightful postscript..."If no reply go to the bar".

That could of course mean that at the bar you shall find pier staff to assist you.  Equally it's somewhere just to go for a drink to cope with the any disappointment or frustration.  Or even if there's no-one on the intercom, it's because they've themselves gone to the bar. I suspect that the interpretive licence is intended here. Love it.

Red Tick

There's some thing a little perplexing about this sign from a hospital toilet area.  It's one of those issues hidden in plain sight.  It's because the tick and it's colour are at odds with each other.  We're more used to seeing green ticks and red crosses, so the red tick is what throws us, but without at first realising why.  Sometimes that juxtaposition can be an intentional thing to encourage or force that thinking and to hold the attention that bit longer to make a connection.

Caring Tree

A quirky handmade sign discouraging littering...."Think before you throw your litter down, you may not care but I do".  

Technically just encouraging the 'thinking' about it though, before explicitly describing the action that it is in fact discouraging (arguably 'shouting' in capitals') 'throw' your litter down'.  That "throw" is a strong and active description, even angry, rather then a description of perhaps typically more nonchalant dis-guarding of litter.

The alternative is to encourage the desirable action.   With the 'You may not care but I do - Please use a litter bin'.  Or to reflect the request to think..."Please consider using a litter bin."  

The original prose curiously opens up the question about whether the message had been left on behalf of the tree so giving it a voice, or possibly that the author is looking on. 

On Parking

A charming home made "No Parking Private" sign.  It shows come real care in the painted letters....perhaps based on a stencil and then care in some sharp lines.  It's the bigger picture where the overall effect is not so sharp.... That stencil seems to have been the wrong way around for the N in No, and hence creation of a new letter form, the mirror image of a capital N.  The spacing then stands out too...Private is keenly biased to the left.  There's a also a little hint on the slightly slanting G of parking, titled just enough to squeeze it into the remaining white space before the border.

Twenty's Plenty

So "Twenty's Plenty Where people live". A very short and catchy sign given it's rhyme, encouraging slower speeds in residential streets. All part of a national campaign 20's Plenty for us. 

There's various formats and sizes which give it a more personal feel too.

Destination Fare

A wonderful original sign on a 1966 vintage double decker bus.  "Please Tender Exact Fare and State Destination". If the fare varies by distance then surely it makes more sense to state the destination first, from which it's possible to calculate the fare....

Swim-mi-ming Pool

From the entrance to the local 'Swim-mi-ing pool'.  The word swimming has an extra 'mi' in the middle for good messure. 

It's quite a good example of how we naturally speed read prose rather than actually read it.  It's a less usual and relatively long word which makes it easier to and more natural for a confident speed read.