What aspects does a designer need to consider when creating of public health and safety signage?
It is estimated that one in three people over the age of 65 years will experience at least one fall in a year, rising to one in two people aged 80 years and over (O\’Loughlin, Robitaille, Boivin & Suissa, 1993). Falls prevention is, therefore, a valuable and necessary health promotion activity for health and social care providers to engage in
Before I begin examining health and safety signage, it is worth noting t The cultural significance of RoSPA health and safety posters can be both overt, yet irritatingly tough to source. These artefacts offer a vivid glimpse into the past and hint to the context to the period they were born. These designs have continued to communicate their messages with a level of sophistication, precision, and experimentation that still inspires today. Frustratingly, RoSPA posters are in actually “fragile, and survive often by accident, in a haphazard and uncoordinated way.” Page 25 It’s also worth stating that “other printed material which is routinely saved to provide the basis of future academic study – books, magazines and newspapers are collected by the British Library in a systematic way; posters are not.” Page 25 This can be seen as invaluable lose to a major part of English heritage. Making the designs that have survived even more precious.
The changing role of the designer was described, by Herbert Read, in “The Practice of Design” (1946). Read was optimistic that the technological virtues, “of precision, simplicity, calculation and economy would appeal to the industrial designer”
It’s hard to pin point the exact amount of accidents prevented, and measure the success and achievement of RoSPA designers. But in 1944 Lord McGowan, President of RoSPA, recognises that, “within the chemical industry a period of two million accident-free man-hours had been recorded.” Reference, these figures were quoted by Lord McGowan in the “Annual Report to RoSPA Members” of 1944. The report is held in the RoSPA Archive at the University of Liverpool. National Executive Committee papers (D.226/2/1).
It’s worth mentioning that this achievement is even more impressive in context to the industrial expansion happening around the 1940s. “Some industries doubled in size in terms of infrastructure and workforce.” page 9 This shows a testament to how important health prevention posters were in war time Britain, where industries were doubling in scale. And designers were still able to be relevant, and make such a positive contribution in industry’s that had seen such rapid development. “The RoSPA campaigns may be considered to have helped the war effort decisively and to have improved the quality of life of the industrial work” page 9
The use of photography in health and safety posters was held back by the “technical difficulties of printing large areas from half-tone blocks.” Pg13These technical constraints were resolved only at the very end of the 1930s. The print industry’s use of photomechanical processes however was further delayed by the ingrained resistance to this new media from designers and craftsmen within the industry. And by the reluctance of owners and shareholders to invest in new machinery. <(Gilmour:1977:pg23)
The origins of government recognising the need for health and safety in the UK dates back to as far as 1802, with the introduction of the Factory Act. https://sm.britsafe.org/health-and-safety-timeline However it wasn’t until 1917 and the creation of the Royal society for the prevention of accidents (RoSPA) that workplace safety was addressed on a national scale. It worth explaining that I don’t extend the focus of my research before 1917, as before this health and safety signs were more like public notices, just displaying a body of text. “This form of public address is century public notice and was probably 100 years out of date by the 1930s!” (Rodney Mace (1999) pp86-87) These signs were never well archived, and were often displayed outside and were simply replaced when they deteriorated.
The first examples of RoSPA signage is back to the London Road Safety campaigns of 1917.pg12 “Their first campaigns were aimed at educating the metropolitan public about the dangers of increased traffic, especially in the difficult conditions of the blackout during war.” page 16 (see fig…) This poster design looks at broadcasting a busy range of road safety messages. The readability of this poster is hard, and wouldn’t be helpful or relevant today, as we use road symbols to display content like ‘limited view ahead’ or ‘keep to the left.’ Its obvious that the first RoSPA signs were focused around simply spreading passive information, rather than focusing on its symbolism seen in later years. http://www.rospaprints.com/
The 1930s experienced an explosion in car ownership, which became much more widespread in Britain, with driving licences issued going from 100,000 in 1920 to 261,000 in 1930. http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/car-ownership This is was also a period which saw the speed restrictions being abolished on British roads. http://www.ukmotorists.com/speed_history.asp
The expediential rise of cars and the relaxation of road speeds naturally led to the RoSPA growing alongside this industry. “It would be accurate to characterise RoSPA at this time as the primary road safety organisation.” Page 16
“By the outbreak of WW2, in September 1939, RoSPA had established itself as a safety organisation of national scope.” Page 17 Expanding into health and safety in general, it positioned itself into three main categories. Accident prevention for the road, in the home and in the workplace. Reference pg:17
Print media and its scale during WW2 was under “strict governmental control and thus restricted competition, almost 5,000 different journals are still published in this country.” (Robert Harling in Read (1946) pp207-209.) The quantities of graphic communications including health and safety signage required by the government for the war effort are astonishing. < reference An examination of the images presented in Anthony Osleys (1995) ‘persuading the people.’ This controlled expansion of the print design industry opened the door for new designers to explore design, and its message in an evolving medium. “Demands of the war economy required by an engagement, on the part of administrators, designers and printers, with the technologies of mechanical reproduction. Pg19
(http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O123423/stow-tools-safely-think-of-poster-eckersley-tom-obe/)
Upon first inspection, the poster above by Tom Eckersley (1942) makes it immediately clear that this health and safety posters avoids any suggestion of the emotional, or explicit physical consequences of industrial injury or suffering. “There is no attempt to shock or distress, or to show the physical damage caused by heavy or powerful machinery.” Page 20 Eckersley is making the viewer explore the narrative of the image. When I examine the poster, I understand the design process behind the idea to this poster, and see it is made up of two sections. The top half and the bottom. The viewer naturally reads left to right, from top to bottom like we do books. Posters are the same. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the top half becomes unclear without the narrative at the bottom, and vice versa. Eckersley has exploited how we read a sign, because you have to take in the poster as a whole; from top to bottom relating typography to image as we read to fully understand. “RoSPA posters often attempt to integrate image and type into a coherent design, using different typographic elements within a short message.” page 20 This poster is no exception.
Rennie Paul (2005:pg21) talks about the level of skill RoSPA designers of this time posed in relatively new and unexplored field of design. He goes on to mention that “There is a remarkable self confidence in the design of these posters that is revealed in the willingness to leave empty, conveniently economical, space around the design and also in the use of a point-of-view that over-scales the image so as to create sense of monumentality.” I would go further and say that in the case of this poster design, Eckersley has explored the idea of “maximum meaning, minimum means,” (Games:1935) and I would argue that these are the characteristics of an effective health and safety poster design.
What’s arguably the most fascinating consequence of RoSPA signs, is the sudden transformation designers made in their styling. “The RoSPA campaign are normally associated with avant-garde and Modernist forms of European graphic design during the 1920s and 30s.” It’s worth stating that this isn’t a style typically found in Britain before this point. This styling seemed to emerge amongst the propaganda output during WW2. “Before 1939 and in the context of poster art, eschewed these kinds of Modernism in favour of a painterly artistic style.” Pg22 The exact cause of this aren’t clear. Perhaps the sudden need for design innovation brought about by pressures of war, British designers looked offshore to the immediate success of Germany and Russia, who at the time were revolutionizing the way we think about propaganda.
RoSPA posters are evidence of innovation and evolution in British designers as they created a new identity for health and safety signage. They “explored a more complex Modernism” pg 22 one that welcomes new design approaches, and allows them to relay ideas in a minimalistic way. “A combination of both ruptures and continuities and is therefore distinguished from its contemporary counterparts.” Page 22 The designers welcomed the integration of avant-gardist and foreign elements into the British design, and in doing so established an identity, and a high level of design sophistication to the entire field of health and safety signage.
In the London V&A museum (Victoria and Albert) the ‘Power of the Poster’ exhibition catalogues from 1998 David Crowley has written about the Home-Front posters and signage WW2 and how it differs from it from other regimes; typically those of the German and Soviet influence. Reference here (David Crowley “Protest and Propaganda” in Timmers 1998 pg125) David then states, the “use of threats and fear rather than information, promises and rational appeal to address their audiences.” (David Crowley:1998:pg124) Designers basically ‘normaized’ the war effort using the assertion that the war was being fought with a social, and morally justified consensus.
It is worth emphasising, that every country produced workplace health and safety signage to support the production efforts of their troops. However no other nation produced a government controlled campaign series of health and safety signage like Britain with the primary intent of safety in industry. Reference here Crowley in Timmers (1998) p125 But an example of the use of American health and safety signage is almost entirely aimed at boosting material output and putting the industrial work at the centre of their campaign as an heroic and symbolic member of the war effort. This is a theme that is in sheer contrast to much of the RoSPA signage.
However, this even goes further when American designers addressed the issues of justice in society, equality they did so through the embrace of the methods stated before. Commending the individuals, rather than the community. “The very existence of the RoSPA campaign therefore tells us something about the social values and political realities of Britain at war. Furthermore, the RoSPA posters offer a powerful contrast to their American counterparts.” Pg 62 here its ok
In addition when examining RoSPA designers work, like seen in (use tom eckerson figure at beginning) it can be easy to notice how they have a distinct level constraint in both their themes and who they are talking to. “RoSPA posters offer the possibility of looking in detail at the ideas, motives and realisation of propaganda beyond the accepted limits of propaganda as necessarily ‘aggressive’, ‘masculine’ and nationalistic in its values.” Page 64
Throughout the RoSPA campaign, the designer’s reluctance to lecture the workforce into keeping safe and healthy within the context of war and survival this sensitivity to the average citizen I believe is astonishing. ‘Fougasse’ (otherwise known as Kenneth Bird) (1946 pg33) reference (Otherwise known as Kenneth Bird)Bird (1946) pp33-38. Bird had been involved, as early as 1935, with the early propagandising of road safety issues as a consequence of the Road Traffic Bill. explains why this is, asking: “What is difference between humorous propaganda and realistic propaganda? The function of realistic propaganda is to stop you putting your hand in a circular saw by shewing you just what happens when you do so; the function of humorous propaganda, on the other hand, is to correct, by implication, the state of mind that prompts you to put your hand there at all.” He went further, arguing how when realistic meets explicit the advantages of humour are notable. “For anything unpleasant naturally causes an automatic closing of the mind against it.” I believe that the RoSPA and its designers embodied this tactic, hence the sensitivity towards realism, and refusal to use horror in their health and safety signs. “A smile will often get far more done than a threat or scowl.” Reference here >Address to the membership 1940. Recorded in “Report to National Executive Committee ,” 1941. RoSPA Archive, National Executive Committee papers (D.266/2/8).
Points of interest / discussion
I have categorised the RoSPA Archive from their 2012 collection exhibition reference here http://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/resources/exhibition-notes.pdf into the following themes.
• Electrical dangers
• Falling objects/persons
• Fire / explosions / smoking
• The need for quick first aid
• Hand tools – sharp edges and blades
• Dangers of mischief in the workplace
• Housekeeping / tidiness / hygiene
• Ladder usage and responsibility
• Workers responsibilities
• Lifting
• Machines
• Protective masks
• Rushing
• Safe clothing
• Safety training
• Safety week
• Stacking
• Traffic
These can then be categorised into four general themes of:
• Public safety
• Road safety
• Workplace safety
• Child safety
The purpose of this categorisation is to get a general understanding of what RoSPA classifys as being important enough to create accident prevention campaigns around. It was also to get an understanding of the entire breadth of RoSPAs work, and too see if there was any common ground. The similarities I found was that every campaign feel into one of four categories. Public, road, workplace, or child safety.
I also want to make a short analysis as to the appropriateness of the style of wit in these separate categories. For example, a campaign using wit for a poster around safety training week could be fun, and highlight the humorous side of health and safety training. However other categories like the need for a quick first aid will most likely not use witty humour. In this case, humour can only take away from severity of the situation, so it’s important to note the appropriateness of witty humour should only be judged on a case by case basis.
Generally designers from RoSPA are sensitive in their approach, because of the wariness and anxiety of the working class during these times due to the consequences of war. They also didn’t want to harangue the working population, and create design based around fear and anxiety in an already troubled time.
How then should RoSPA designers approach the working population?
In this next section I will be exploring the application of wit and humour in health and safety signage. “Witty signing is design with good manners. It earns itself permission to stay.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg118) As stated in the section before, it’s good to be polite in your first impression and not push some political or social agenda onto the public.
“Most signs are straightforward, like ‘Fire Exit’ or ‘No Parking.’ What about a sign that gives the information in witty way? Suppose it says’No Parking – don’t even think about it?’ This is a message with more than one layer.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg19) This is intriguing because the message is no longer sending the recipient passive, informative information. Instead, it’s engaging the recipient to asking them to literally ‘think about it’.Wit invites participants, because it asks the viewer or reader to take part in the communication of the idea.
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O123285/asking-for-trouble-poster-eckersley-tom-obe/
“Opportunities for wit are probably most neglected in this area of graphics. Yet signs can be three dimensional posters, and a adopt extraordinary powerful scale” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg118) The image above by Tom Eckersley (1940) is a great example of wit in health and safety signs. The idea is strong enough, that it doesn’t even need to tell you what the issue is, it lets you piece it together. It doesn’t take you for a fool. Eckersley recognises that you know a broken ladder is danger. He doesn’t humiliate the recipient, and shows them that is makes common sense to just not use it. This design is just telling not to be stupid and don’t take the risk. I find this poster particularly clever, because he doesn’t just try to sell the idea of a broken ladders are dangerous, but he’s thought about how he can place you in the situation.
“A poster with a measure of intrigue engages the mind of the spectator, and he looks again. You have to guide him along so he follows your line of thought.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg148) Between the two Eckersley posters shown above, the first one has comparatively more of a narrative and sophistication. This is because the first design asks for you to follow the flow of the poster and observe it as a whole to give you the message. The ‘asking for trouble‘ poster however, is more punchy and obvious in its approach. “Good witty design is more playful, and explicitly clever.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg16)
I would argue that there is more room for failure in witty design compared to informative design. With informative design you simply need to present the information and make it readable to atleast get the message across. Wit however can go one of many ways. Beryl and Stuart (1998:pg16) go on to talk about wit as being either “familiar or playful. If it is high in both it will be a success, a hit. If it has lots of surprise but little recognition, it will be baffling, enigmatic, and impenetrable to most people.” Not understanding, or having little recognition of the message in relation to the design is the worst case scenario where wit can fail. It is rendered useless if the design can’t co-operate with the message, as one cannot operate without the other. “If a witty solution involves a great deal of recognition, but little surprise, the solution will be obvious and weak.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg16) Obvious doesn’t necessarily mean bad. The design can still push boundaries, but because of the nature of health and safety signage, they tend to be ignored, and if you can’t ignite a spark of interest, getting the message across will be harder.
It’s worth noting that much of the old RoSPA signage, or health and safety signage in general may seem common, or even not as sophisticated as modern design. But it’s worth remembering that “Ideas need to be seen through the spectacles of the period. A job which was startling when it appeared might not be startling if it was done now.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg17) Designs and their message that rewrote the rule book in the 40s, and revaluated the design standard may have been “pounced on by other designers and become common place.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg17) I think it’s worth noting that “real wit lasts” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg17) and I would go as far as to say that its timeless.
“The benefit of witty design is that the recipient becomes willing to hear the message. The audience becomes captive. The communication has the best possibility to start.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg18) Good wit I would argue, intrigues viewers from their initial glance, because curiosity.. Once captivated “the best way to win time for a message is to intrigue.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg18)
“What you’ve got to worry about is if someone actually reads this” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg18) This is where we go away from the design aspect and consider the message were trying to convey. Wit is a very powerful tool, and can be used to misguide, and distort the truth. Its up to the designer to make sure they design with a conscious.
Another aspect of the participation using wit, demanding a response from the recipient.
“Imagine there is a clothes line which stretches from the designer sending the communication to the person receiving it. If the communication is merely ‘fire exit,’ the designer comes 100% along, and the person doesn’t have to move an inch” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg19)
This is the same as any straight piece of information. It expects a passive recipient rather than active participation. “But when wit is involved, the designer never travels 100% of the way. The ideas has to be ‘seen or decoded, and this demands an active recipient. The audience may need to travel only 5% or as much as 40% towards the designer in order to unlock the puzzle.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg19)
“It is as if the designer throws a ball which then has to be caught. So the recipient is alert, with an active mind in gear.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg19)
Wit invites participants because it asks the reader or viewer to take part in the communication of the idea. – rewrite in owns words
Talk about the pleasure of decoding. With a witty design, it is the recipient who makes the necessary act of completion. This response is based on intellectual curiosity
Me> However, when a designer decides to use humour, it does demand another level of appreciation. “It’s a delicious shock to the brain cells”
“The brain prefers to find new tracks rather than to keep going over the old ones.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg20)
Arguably the most impactful signs, as the ones that do their purpose,
“Nothing was so perfectly amusing, as a total change of ideas.” (Laurence Sterne:1998:pg20)
Talk about humour, how it walks an even thinner line between complete failure and success.
(About humour) “The delight is such that only 1% of the job may be witty, but the wit makes it 100% better.”
“Humour is an essential part of his act of persuasion”
Talk about how this link of humour and wit in signs takes a difference stance for giving formative information, to selling people an idea. This is what I believe the very best designs do. They sell an idea rather than simply regurgitating the obvious ‘in one ear out the other’ information. A smile (briefly talk designers role is trying to produce a commercial outcome, because of the ease a reader can extract the data.) Talk about how design like wit can be controversial, as it takes down peoples initial guards, and sells them a mind set. An idea. Curiosity. It is the art of persuasion. If you then feed them an idea and they reject it
“If I can get you to laugh at a particular point I make, by laughing you acknowledge its truth.”
(possible link to cigarette advertising?)
“What a witty approach does is to focus as much on receptiveness as on what is to be received.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg21) Rephrase in own words
“It’s like persuading the goalkeeper to stand aside before you shoot at the goal.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg21) All you have to do be is on target.
¬It forms a bond
“When the witty idea is ‘over and understood’ it produces a flash of insight and creates a link.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg22)
Comedian Victor Borge defined humour as “the shortest distance between two people” Alan bennet a british playwrite argues that: “Any third-rate journalist putting together copy feels entitled to be ‘matey’ simple because one makes jokes.” I would argue that in the case for journalism and propaganda that words can be “like paper bullets.” Bearing in mind that the same can also be said for graphic design as well. One only needs to look at Adulf Hitlers Kinder, was wisst ihr vom Führer? http://www.wolfsonian.org/explore/collections/kinder-was-wisst-ihr-vom-f%C3%BChrer-children-what-do-you-know-leader-0 or Stalin’s war campaign
https://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A2KLktmz7ZtW_1sA_pme3olQ;_ylu=X3oDMTIzZTdiaWJwBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZANiNjRhNTcxOWQxMWY5N2E0ODhmZmZhMjhhYTNhOGZhYgRncG9zAzI0BGl0A2Jpbmc-?.origin=&back=https%3A%2F%2Fuk.images.search.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3F_adv_prop%3Dimage%26va%3Dstalin%2527s%2Bpropaganda%26fr%3Dyhs-ddc-ddc_bd%26hsimp%3Dyhs-ddc_bd%26hspart%3Dddc%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D24&w=800&h=558&imgurl=lh3.ggpht.com%2F__mlq2w_rGKY%2FTSXjkABhHHI%2FAAAAAAAAG4U%2FQ2Q9XCw_Zwg%2Fs800%2Fdoodle3.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpixgood.com%2Fstalin-propaganda-posters-in english.html&size=100.3KB&name=%3Cb%3EStalin%3C%2Fb%3E+%3Cb%3EPropaganda%3C%2Fb%3E+Posters+In+English+Honest%2C+etc…+behind&p=stalin%27s+propaganda&oid=b64a5719d11f97a488fffa28aa3a8fab&fr2=&fr=yhs-ddc-ddc_bd&tt=%3Cb%3EStalin%3C%2Fb%3E+%3Cb%3EPropaganda%3C%2Fb%3E+Posters+In+English+Honest%2C+etc…+behind&b=0&ni=21&no=24&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11s72sbs1&sigb=14m4vvrkj&sigi=12fvri8o0&sigt=1288akfcg&sign=1288akfcg&.crumb=kvQy2z6SWMC&fr=yhs-ddc-ddc_bd&hsimp=yhs-ddc_bd&hspart=ddc
to see the gravitas of how image and text can create allegiances. War time Germany was an excellent example of using emotion as a design tactic “The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to their attention.” (Adolf Hitler:1925:pg135) Thankfully in the case of RoSPA, their campaigns are relatively morally clean and consenting. Focusing on the situation, without the need to push some emotional, political agenda. This is what makes RoSPA signs as inspiring and relevant today as they were when they first began over seventy five years ago.
It should also be noted that a great deal of trust was invested to these revolutionary designers, in a relatively new, yet important field of public signage. Abraham Games and Tom Eckersley were allowed to explore the idea of “maximum meaning, minimum means” (Games:1935) focusing on message, and the recipient. This mind set in the designers, is likely responsible for the exclusion, and breaking down for the need of social classing and political agendas in their design, unlike like we see in Nazi Germany propaganda.
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Perhaps one of the reasons why British designers in RoSPA favour a more witty design approach is due to the British society in general. “Wit implies joining, in the sense of if you understand this, you’re one of us.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg22.) Beryl, and David go further and note the importance of a structured society and the historic dominance of the British Empire and the class differences. All of which is centred around a core question. “Are you one of us?” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:22.) Being a small island nation with a diverse range of ethnicities, and contrast of rich to poor, it’s no surprise witty design is being used to include everyone. The poster above for example, would be as effective to a politician as it would a builder. It relies purely on conjuring emotion to the recipient, to show the importance of handing in duds. “Wit can be both emotional and intellectual. It relies on a truth.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:22.) These emotional tactics are actually similar to Nazi Germanys war propaganda, and is actually relatively uncommon practice for safety prevention posters in Britain. This couldn’t be in more contrast to American signage found at in the same period. For example Reigal, perhaps one of the most influential American information in war analysists of the time states: “The function of the war poster is to make coherent and acceptable a basically incoherent and irrational ordeal of killing, suffering, and destruction that violates every accepted principle of morality and decent living.” In contrast, the British government did not want to cause panic or alarm. “Posters were used to up keep morale or wartime spirit.” It’s amazing the RoSPA actually authorised the idea for this poster. Even Abraham Games, one of the most influential graphic designers must have had trouble trying to sell the idea of showing a dead child in a coffin.
This design certainly isn’t like many of the other safety prevention posters found in war time Britain. However, Games was able to successfully navigate the design in a way that that it is universally shocking and relevant. It makes sense to use shock tactics because of the nature of the topic, and the scale of the issue. Such readability, means that even a child would take homage, now knowing the consequences of playing with duds. Because even a child has some concept of death. Perhaps even more so, considering the war period.
With all this in mind, we still need to consider probably the most important question when it comes to the designer’s success or failure of accident prevention signs. Does the viewer read it. Or remember it. And if so, why is witty design more memorable? “We would argue that an idea that happens in the mind, stays in the mind.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:23) What separates a witty design approach to other, is that wit leaves the idea to be discovered, and ‘feeds’ the recipient the idea. Whilst informative design ‘tells’ you the idea. Whenever people discover something it gives a sense of entitlement, and leaves an impression. “These are heightened moments. Reverting to brain chemistry again, it seems like an explosion takes place when ideas collide.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:23)
In the constant bombardment and overload of information people receive daily, accident prevention signs need to go above and beyond the usual design tactics. They are seen as a necessary evil because of the emotional; or even explicit message they force upon people. But catching people’s attention to prevent an accident, is always going to be in their best interest. This couldn’t be more apparent in times of war. Lord McGowan, (president of RoSPA:1939) expressed the importance of RoSPA\’s work by observing that, “an accident in the works is as much a gain to the enemy as a casualty in the armed forces.”
Accident prevention designers need to resort to a different set of design tactics to grab people’s attention. People try to actively ignore and reject health and safety signs because it questions their morality, and points out what they’re doing wrong. “Thoughts of death remove an individual’s “protection” from mortality and make them seek ways to “save themselves.” (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski:199:pg72). This is known as the ‘fight-or-flight’ response. “For anything unpleasant naturally causes an automatic closing of the mind against it.” (Bird:1946:pg38)
Rejection to design, leaves designers needing to resort to underhand tactics to grab people’s attention. “What has more seductively, and staying power than wit?” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:23) Wit is sly in its approach. By not being obvious as to what it is until further examination, and the recipient pieces the narrative together. It goes further than the immediate glance, by engaging them, and capturing cognitive memory. “The idea has to been ‘seen’ or decoded, as this demands an active recipient.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:19.) This is why explicit or unambiguous design isn’t a favourable method for accident prevention designs. It is simply the “message which just can’t fail to be understood.” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:23) which in doing so the “explicit and unambiguous shuts out the recipient” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:pg:23) because of their initial unwillingness to participate.
A relatively new study about rejection to design is described in Jensen Moore, Esther Thorson and Glenn Leshner terror management theory in anti-tobacco advertising. The book looks at the examination of death and explicit anti-tobacco messaging on young adults. The relevance of this, is that anti-smoking campaigns are inclusive in the category of health and safety signage, and is the most explicit example of rejection design. Rejection to health and safety design is important, as we can find out what design solutions don’t work, and try to establish how we can create better alternatives.
The terror theory goes on to explain how when people are faced with their morality, we often consciously and unconsciously defend ourselves, as not to affect our mental health. “Recent studies indicate that fear design creates emotions such as anxiety, aggression, and avoidance that are highly effective.” (Moore,Thorson,Leshner:2011:pg6) Therefore designing explicit anti-smoking campaigns to smokers for example will not only makes them defensive, but more likely to side against the campaign, rather than heed the health advise. People don’t like going to the doctors knowing they are probably going to receive bad news about their health. Or hearing what damage they`ve done to their bodies. This is the same as what anti-smoking campaigns push on smokers.
Tactics that designers can use is to tackle the social norm, and bring about social change rather than effect people personally. “Messages that emphasise harm to family, and the socially unacceptable nature of smoking, are likely to be most effective.” (Moore, Thorson, Leshner: 2011:pg2) These usually aren’t the most explicit, or shocking, health and safety designs. Instead they focus on changing a mind-set, and challenging the social circle. In the case of smoking, they try to away the social role of the cigarette, and try take it out of the culture context to mock, and shame users. Unfortunately, trying to change the attitudes of people in this way can have repercussions. “Denormalisation may contribute to their stigmatisation.” (Voigt: 2011:pg3) http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-007-6374-6_4#page-1 For example, demonising the smoker, rather than the cigarette can lead it to social rejection, and stigmatisation of smokers in general. “Humans need to maintain favourable self-images, promote the beliefs and values of one’s culture, and inevitably regulate behaviour in socially acceptable ways” (Moore, Thorson, Leshner: 2011:pg2) Designers that target and shame these social norms to push their health and safety messages need to be careful how they challenge their recipients as they could unnecessarily stigmatise people.
It’s important to note that even though this terror theory was originally formulated around cigarette signage, it also has application in any other health and safety signage that questions the same issues of morality and wellbeing. I would argue that this is exactly what health and safety posters are designed to do. The very nature of health and safety signage is to attack your morality, and try to detach from what you perceive to be the social norm, and change. This according to the terror management theory, inadvertently creates reverse psychology. “These feelings result in defensiveness, aggression, and exaggeration as individuals distort their reality to alleviate vulnerability to death” (Moore, Thorson, Leshner:2011:p3)
But it’s worth noting that there is a difference between having cancer, and being told you’re going to get it.
Methodology
To begin my methodology, it is worth noting that my research is conducted using descriptive analysis rather that statics. This is in due to the nature of my dissertation, and the experiential.
In October 1960 L Bruce Archer asked, “Do Posters Work?” A question that he attempted to answer using an analysis of three specifically designed safety posters by Eric Ayers for display within a steel factory.92 The experiment was carried out under the auspices of the British Iron 89 “Design” was published monthly by the CoID It was found that the posters were effective, but that their effectiveness was not so much a function of the style or design of the poster as a consequence of the creation of a “mood of responsibility within the workplace.” Indeed, the paper warns against graphic designers thinking that exciting design is sufficient to attract attention and modify behaviour. The equivocal findings of this experiment are in sharp contrast to the success of the wartime RoSPA campaign. Page 53-54 methodology
Lord McGowan, president of RoSPA, expressed the importance of RoSPA\’s work by observing that, “an accident in the works is as much a gain to the enemy as a casualty in the armed forces.”1 page 17
In 1940 he expressed a similar sentiment with more force, “one of our fighters is missing if you are off work with an accident.”18 page 17
These views were projected beyond the RoSPA membership by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,19 who said that, “the factory and the fighting front are one.”20 page 17
Generally designers from RoSPA were sensitive in their approach, because of the wariness and anxiety of the working class during these times due to the consequences of war. Today, we see a sense of detachment from explicit imagery because of how common it is, resulting in the ‘numbing’ of people towards it. However, in war people are always under threat, and therefore more committed on a national level to their health safety because of the unavoidability of war.
Wit and humour in British graphic design has been comprehensively discussed in “A Smile in the Mind” by Beryl McAlhone and David Stuart (1996).96 Their conclusion, supported by explanation and illustrations, is that wit in graphic design is a peculiarly effective way of building relationships through the shared processes of decoding.97 The space for humour in effective graphic communication was opened up, in Britain, partly by the appropriation of Surrealist techniques of transformation and juxtaposition. This appropriation was only possible in a context where the more formalist tendencies of the avant-garde had been rejected in favour of more emotional expression – Summary of a smile in the mind!
Graphic design in the western world is something we see every day. We all acknowledge its presence, but rarely consider the message or the form its set in. We are all influenced by the visuals around us, but it’s the design that pulls passive strings and manipulates us that actually affects us. Steven Hellers Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalarian State: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State (2008)
“Wit can be the difference between something that is glanced at for 10 seconds and one that is poured over for 10 minites” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg18) Introduction about wit?
“A little bit of wit can lift spirits” (Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart:1998:pg17)