When it comes to storytelling, I work with people and companies in many ways.
Sometimes, oddly and unexpectedly, I work with clients on images, digital assets, and signage. This is odd and unexpected because I have a weak visual memory and struggle to distinguish excellent design from poor design.
But I can tell you if your image is telling the right story.
This sign, which I saw yesterday, is one that I would declare a mess.
It tells no story. It’s actually worse than that:
It confuses me.
The name of this rehab facility is ivy — with a lower-case i.
Why a lower-case i?
I have no idea, but it doesn’t strike me as a good choice. It looks odd in print, and the computer is constantly trying to autocorrect to an uppercase I.
Even the ghost in the machine thinks it’s a bad idea.
But that’s not my biggest complaint about these three letters.
Given its name, the business appears to be incorporating the idea of ivy in a vegetative sense into the design.
But how does this connect to the rehab facility?
Do they make use of nature as part of their therapy?
Are the owners or operators environmentally conscious?
Do they also sell pergolas and lawn seed?
Or did the designers make the words green and plant-like just because of the word ivy?
If it’s the latter, and I suspect it is, that is not a story. It’s simply a matchy-matchy situation.
“Hey, the name is ivy — with a weird lower-case i — so let’s make it look like ivy, even though ivy has nothing to do with our business.”
Not a story.
Then comes the word “rehab,” which doesn’t seem to align with “ivy” in any stylistic sense, except it’s also lower-case and there’s no space between the two words.
So are they one word or two words — differentiated not by a space but by color?
Underneath this concoction of words and design are the words “Physical Therapy,” which feel like they were added because “ivyrehab” wasn’t clear enough.
So “Physical Therapy” is either repetitive or clarifying, depending on what you already know about the place, but neither reason is a good one for these words.
Then, to top it off, is the block with “HSS,” which if you look it up, could mean Hospital for Special Surgery, Health Service System (which would still be a mystery to me), Health Support Service (still a mystery), or Humbucker-Single-Single, which is a particular way to play an electric guitar.
So probably not that.
But except for that guitar reference, I have no idea what this acronym stands for or what the options these letters could stand for even mean.
So this is a mess.
Not a story.
Just a confusing jumble of ideas and mysteries that say nothing about the services being offered inside.
I’m sure that ivyrehab is a wonderful rehab/garden center/guitar lesson conglomerate, but the sign isn’t helping them at all.
In fact, it’s probably hurting them.
