Seen at a French railway station, a sign points out that seats in a waiting area have been set aside for the handicapped.
The text is clearly stated (in French). Pictograms accompany the text, but they lack clarity. They illustrate different sorts of handicap: people who are deaf, blind, wheelchair-bound.
The fourth pictogram leaves me puzzled. By elimination, it seems to illustrate mental handicaps and possibly alludes to people with Down’s syndrome. But it looks like a pair of masks, suggesting actors. And as one face is black and the other white, the pictogram also inadvertently makes all sorts of awkward ethnic allusions, suggesting handicap among foreigners, people of color, pale people, or multi-racial couples.
In 2008, I’d written about good design encountered at the French post office. A sign won me over because it conveyed a wealth of information on opening hours and busyness with superb legibility.
I’d wondered in that post whether the post office would update the information. It has.
A new sign at the post office announces new opening hours.
The good news: the post office is open more hours today than it had been in the past. At least in my Paris neighborhood, public service can improve over time.
More good news: the post office conveys new information about opening hours clearly. The graphic design suggests that the post office really does want its message to be read and understood.
Information about busier (and less busy) times has disappeared. Hopefully this is temporary, as customer visiting behavior changes with the longer opening hours and as the post office measures these changes.
My American friends may have trouble believing that there really is a political party in France called the New Anti-Capitalist Party. Its French initials are NPA, and it’s the successor to the Revolutionary Communist League.
For my American friends, I’d describe the NPA as a protest party, with no serious chance of holding elective office.
Though the NPA may be little, its graphic design is world class.
Here’s an example I saw while biking around Paris this weekend, affixed to a utility box beside a canal near La Villette, a neighborhood with a working-class, left-wing past that has been undergoing gentrification and “bobo”-fication. My example features two posters. One pledges to tax the bosses, with an interesting image of a fat cat. I’m intrigued by the image because, to my eyes, it succeeds in being lighthearted (like a comic book) and deadly serious (because the boss is sitting on a pile of money that could otherwise used to boost wages and create jobs). The other is a generic poster for the party. Both posters show the NPA logo, a red-and-white logo of a loudspeaker: it’s a protest, a clenched fist; and it’s also a cry, transmitted by the megaphone speaker. The NPA stands for organized protest. The red background recalls the party’s far-left heritage; the white sans-serif lettering speaks clearly.
The quality of the NPA graphic design stands out, especially in comparison with the UMP, the governing party in France today. The UMP’s logo echoes the French (or Paris) flag. The party initials are written in serifed characters. In small print, in blue on a white background, the party is also identified as “the popular movement”, which doesn’t correspond (in French) to the UMP initials. Finally, there is a big tree in the middle of the logo. Why? If you’re not among the initiated, it’s hard to know why.
Seen at a French railway station, a sign points out that seats in a waiting area have been set aside for the handicapped.