Stop, Think, Go, Do

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Don’t deny it! (See?!) At all times, somewhere, someone is

sending you overt and covert messages, often through media

designed to control your behavior (and now there’s more media

than ever). In the film version of George Orwell’s 1984 (with

Richard Burton in his last role), the ubiquitous “Big Brother is

Watching You” poster makes clear that on- and off-screen, Big

Brother is always present.

This infamous saying was not a benign greeting from a

benevolent “brother,” but an official command to obey—or face

the consequences. It was like all those posters we saw in school,

telling us to do this and not do that—even the ones about staying

healthy were rendered in a threatening tone and ominous style.

Of course, Orwell’s novel was about a fictional totalitarian nation,

Oceania, and a faux omniscient leader, but too many real

governments—past and present—have Big Brothers, or shall we

call them demagogues. This gives credence to the fact that we are

routinely told when, where, and how to behave—for reason-

able and irrational reasons. We accept these dicta virtually

without question.

Now, read on! Or else!

Many of our daily commands are communicated in the forms of

graphic, environmental, and product design. We are conditioned

to respond to the controlling missives we receive, and not

inconsequentially, by the illustrative and typographic appearance

of those missives.

Take the everyday act of crossing the street: It is dictated

by terse commands—stop, go, cross, don’t cross. Alt! Whatever

the language, the orders are always comprehensible in print. If

not the specific words (berhenti means “stop” in Malaysia)—or

the alphabet (Cyrillic or Chinese)—then the colors (e.g., red for

stop, yellow for wait, green for go), symbols (e.g., outstretched

hands for stop), and sign shapes are often unmistakable

HERE’S A FACT OF LIFE:

YOU ARE CONSTANTLY

BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO.

indicators. There is a wide range of forbidden (verbotten),

beware, and scores of iterations of never ever or never again

messages presented to us in picture and word—some of them

are official, others are ad hoc—found everywhere.

Street signs are not the only graphic interventions that

impact our behavioral consciousness and subconsciousness.

Our lives are filled with typographic and pictorial decrees

and warnings designed to either regiment, protect, or otherwise

condition the everyday. So common (even inconsequential)

are some, we often take them for granted—and might even

ignore them entirely (who knows what post no bills actually

means, or employees must wash hands doesn’t apply to me).

Other times they are so jarring (like the unambiguous word

quarantine) we cannot skirt the implication, even if we tried.

Short and lengthily worded commands, proclamations, testi-

monies, and directions have been essential to our hardwired

behavior since signs and symbols were first scratched onto

the Lascaux caves. “Watch Out for Wooly Mammoths!”

Designing commands is not, however, the exclusive province

of graphic designers. In fact, when words are used to influence

behavior, the niceties of typographic design are often sacrificed

for the brutish immediacy of pure, untutored expression.

Of course, typography is essential in getting most messages

across, and designers are responsible, at the very least, for

designing the typefaces, if not also how they are used. It is

unlikely that the word stop would be typeset in a curlicue script

—it just doesn’t have the authority—but anyone, designer

or not, can select a slab serif or bold gothic face to make the

word (or statement) “scream.”

The term scream (or screamer) is, in fact, a jargonistic de-

scription referring to extra-large headlines usually on tabloid

newspapers. It further refers to those words—and images—

that demonstratively influence the receiver or audience.

Designers are well equipped to make the right typographic

decisions to achieve this primal scream. But nondesigners,

and this includes graphic arts and non–graphic arts profes-

sionals, also possess a naive capacity to make fundamental

selections that achieve their goal.