Savannah
Armer
17
September 2012
Art
195
Stacy
Asher
Thought Paper 2: What does it really Mean?
Is it bird? No, I think it’s a
plane, Oh it’s a Do Not Enter sign. In our modern day world, we are constantly
confronted with signs, public, private, etc. These signs can give us
information or the road conditions, new sales at the mall, a room for rent, or
even makes us want to buy a pair of Nikes. But what do the signs really mean?
Do they really have just one function, or is there function also sub-conscious
only for our mind to really process. Public signs are necessary for society to keep
functioning as a unit, and to keep people out of trouble.
This do not enter sign was designed to guide public
traffic into the private University safely.
It was designed as San Francisco got bigger, and once quiet all girl
campus became a booming university in the middle of a big city. The audience is
the people who wish to see/visit the university or people actually involved in
the University such as teachers, students, etc. The sign is wishing to
communicate to anyone trying to enter the Lone Mountain campus safety, without
causing a car accident. The signage
creates a sense of place because it has a care about the flow of traffic, the
busier areas you go to, the more traffic signage there will be to direct the
public and avoid accidents. The campus wasn’t even there one hundred years ago.
The campus near this time was on Hayes and Shrader after its previous campus
had been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco on Hayes and Van Ness. One hundred
years ago the Lone Mountain campus would have still been a cemetery. There
would have great crypts and mausoleums covering the landscape as far as the eye
could wonder. Rich greens from the grass would have made the grays in the
concrete graves pop so beautifully.
To read signage is more than just reading the intent
of the sign that you are studying but to look at the sign as a whole picture,
where was it placed? Why was it placed? What is placed around it? I enjoy this
picture so much because it is the clash of two different ideas. The do not
enter sign is right next to the roaring lion, as if to be a warning for all of
those people who do want to enter. The demand is instantly met with an image,
although it wasn’t placed there to do so. It is the clash of two different
signages, one trying to direct the San Francisco traffic and the other
attempting to be a decoration, lining the campus with lions as a means of
protection for us all.
