Marianna Dionysiou

Professor Cook

English 2072

17 October 2022

Critique of Glenwood Garden’s Cautionary Sign

This sign is right at the entrance of Glenwood Gardens, so anyone visiting the park will

likely see the sign as they have to pass by it to walk on any of the trails. The sign aims to inform

park visitors about what they should not do while enjoying the park in an effort to maintain its

beauty. While this sign uses interpretive themes such as a short and catchy title, it is ineffective

due to its poor design quality, irrelevant drawings, inaccessible wording, and poor text

formatting. By changing these factors, the sign can become more effective, encouraging more

people to stop and read the important information it displays.

The sign’s title is one of the few interpretive and effective aspects of the sign. According

to the 3-30-3 rule, the first thing a person sees when looking at a sign is the title, so it is

important that the title captures the reader’s attention (Young). If the sign has a large visual, then

that could also be the first thing someone looks at; however, because the title is bolded and the
visual is a lighter shade of gray, the first thing anyone will look at is likely the title for this sign.

A sign's title has just three seconds to intrigue a person to read the rest of the information

displayed on the sign, which this sign does.

"Enjoy! Don't Destroy!" is short and to the point. When reading the title, the park visitor

will likely know a vague idea of what the sign is about. That's an essential element of an

interpretive sign. A sign should be relevant to the subject matter of the body of the text, but good

park signs also make the reader think. People might think about what they could be destroying

and how they would be destroying it when reading the title. The desire to know this information

would likely encourage visitors to read more of the sign. "Enjoy! Don't Destroy!" is also short

enough to capture someone's attention, and it's catchy because it rhymes. The title is great for

kids; it is easy to imagine children chanting, "enjoy! don't destroy!," and it is also a fun title for

adults to read as it's different than a lot of the other signs in the area titled "pick up your litter" or

"clean up after yourself." Those signs don't necessarily intrigue people to read the rest of the sign

after reading the title because the reader can assume they already know the rest of the

information. How many times has an adult heard “pick up your litter” in their life? However,

"Enjoy! Don't Destroy!" is vague enough that the reader might think they don't know everything

in the text body. They might want to learn about what they could destroy and how to prevent

destroying it.

While the short and catchy title is effective because it encourages the reader to think

about how their enjoyment could decrease if they contribute to destroying the park, the design is

not very effective. Like other signs in Glenwood Gardens, this sign is in black and white and has

faded beige paper. The design qualities make the sign feel outdated, and many people will likely

skip reading the sign because oftentimes, people feel like older signs that look outdated also
feature outdated information. Instead, this visual could have a clean white background with black

text for the body, red text for the title to represent the somewhat cautionary stance the sign is

trying to take, and a colored visual. By making these small changes, the sign will no longer look

outdated and will likely encourage the reader to actually read the sign because the information

will be viewed as relevant.

In addition, the visual should be changed. While the black and white drawing of leaves

and flowers is beautiful, it is not incredibly relevant to the sign. The sign's primary focus is

trying to maintain the park’s beauty by encouraging people to walk on the trail, not litter, and

pick up after their pets. The image is somewhat relevant if referring to maintaining the park's

scenic qualities, but it could be changed for something that highlights key ideas: visual of

someone cleaning up after their dog and encouraging others to do the same, a visual showing

what happens over time when people do not remain on the path, or something else relevant to

any of the activities the park tries to encourage people to avoid doing. Also, the visual takes up

almost half of the left side of the sign, making it feel somewhat unbalanced. Due to its size, it

will likely be the second aspect of the sign people look at, and because it is somewhat irrelevant

to the sign's key points, it doesn’t really further the message of the sign. The sign would be much

more effective in persuading people to follow the rules if the visuals were more relevant to the

text body.

The text body is arguably the worst aspect of this sign due to its inaccessible language.

For example, "fecal matter," "deposited," "suitable," and "receptacle" are not necessarily words

that everyone would know. They are also words that are often used in more academic writing,

which would likely deter people from reading and completely absorbing the information

highlighted in the sign. In addition, this park is visited by many families, many of which have
small kids. This sign would be more effective if it used language at a lower grade level, as more

people would understand the sign, which would mean more people would listen to it. For

example, instead of saying, "Any fecal matter deposited on the trail by a pet must be

immediately removed and placed in a suitable receptacle," the park could state, "Please pick up

after your pet." That sentence is less formal and written at a lower grade level, making it easier

for younger children and adults to understand. How many people know what a receptacle is and

will continue reading the sign if they see that word in the middle of it?

In addition, "Park by-laws prohibit littering, picking of wildflowers and require pets to

be leashed at all times" is somewhat effective because people are less likely to partake in

something they know is illegal; however, because most people who pick wildflowers are kids,

the sign could have a bulleted list of activities you cannot do while at the park and a subheading

of "Don't Break the Law." This would make the sign much easier to understand, and the bulleted

list would make the information easier to read. Lastly, the text is poorly formatted. There are

random extra spaces between the words "in a suitable" and before each paragraph. In addition,

the double-spaced nature of the text paired with somewhat elevated jargon makes the sign feel

even more like an academic paper, deterring people from wanting to read it. The margin for the

second to last line feels like it is far too close to the edge of the sign, and the sign has an odd

concave area near the middle. This poor text formatting can make the information hard to read.

The sign should be changed to have less spacing between lines, no random spacing between

words, and smaller margins.

Overall, the sign tries to emphasize an important message, which is that people should do

everything in their power to maintain the park's beauty so that everyone can enjoy it. However,

due to the sign's outdated design, irrelevant visuals, elevated jargon, and poor text formatting,
people will likely not read past the interpretive and catchy title. By updating and changing these

aspects, the sign will become more interpretive and will encourage more people of all ages to

think about the consequences of their actions, protecting the park and people's experience at the

park.
 Works Cited

Young, Remi. “The ‘3-30-3’ Rule: Does Your Marketing Content Measure Up?” Cadence

Preferred, 17 Sept. 2020, https://www.cadencepreferred.com/the-3-30-3-rule-does-your-

marketing-content-measure-

up/#:~:text=Whether%20you're%20crafting%20an,to%20spend%20reading%20the%20c

ontent.