Emotionally intelligent signage

Jennifer Caleshu, Director of Communications of the fantastic Bay Area Discovery Museum, sends this terrific example of emotionally intelligent signage from the trash cans at the new California Academy of Sciences.Notice how the third sign really makes you stop, think, empathize, and (probably) change your behavior.

Emotionally intelligent signage won’t change the world in an end-world-hunger/solve-the-climate-crisis/bring-genocidal-dictators-to-justice sort way. But I do think it can make people’s lives a little bit better.And since we’ve turned this site into something of a clearinghouse for this idea, folks have started to ask for (your) help. Case in point: Lesley, on behalf of an Ontario […]

Reader Ethan Benatan writes:“I don’t travel through Midway [Airport] often, but late one night my flight landed at Gate A4B and all the flight attendants let loose huge sighs of despair. Even the ramp crew joked about it. Here’s why.The walkway from A4B into the terminal is not only long, it feels like a surreal […]

Seems to be emotionally intelligent signage week here at the Pink Blog.  Reader Julio Appling writes: I was in an immense Bangkok, Thailand shopping mall looking for a toilet, but was concerned that the language barrier might be a hindrance. As it turns out, this sign let me know exactly where I should be headed. […]

In Needham, Massachusetts, town manager Kate Fitzpatrick has been making a bold and creative push to use emotionally intelligent signage to get drivers to slow down. Now Fox News in Boston has picked up the story and done a terrific 90-second video report on Fitzpatrick’s efforts (including a plug for AWNM!)Alas, Fox has prevented people from embedding the video. So if you […]

Forty-five minutes west of Pink, Inc, world headquarters — in the once bucolic, now (sorta) booming land of Loudon County — the Virginia Department of Transportation is rolling out a cool experiment.Instead of painting perfectly straight white lines down the center of some roads, VDOT is using zig-zag lines. Huh? The crooked lines look a […]

Brie Weiler Reynolds sends this emotionally intelligent and attention-getting sign from a park in New Zealand.

(via Burbia)

Nicole Chen, a student at the California College of Arts’ cool new Design Strategy MBA program, sends this example of emotionally intelligent signage, which she photographed on a beach in Barcelona.The comic word bubble is a nice way to soften a somewhat stern message. And my guess is that this surprising and friendly shape, coupled […]

I’m not sure if what the Ironworkers at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are doing qualifies as emotionally intelligent signage. But you’ll have to agree the signs they’re spray-painting are intelligent. And emotional. (HT: Chris Cavallerano)