I started to look at signs and how we react to them. They have a level of authority that we abide to all or most of the time. The colours and shapes associated with street signs become signifiers for important messages throughout our lives. The colour red is used in street signs and warning labels and so informs us that the information that it is communicating is important and that we should pay attention to it. This is useful in our day to day lives as we can sort the visual information we receive into varying categories of importance. The problem with this is that if advertisers know this then they can employ the same colours and shapes to make you think their advert has a similar level of importance.
I changed the colours of a common street sign to see what effect it had. I would immediately recognise the blue and white shapes as a sign, an official street sign that represents the law or rules of a institution. By changing the colours the authority of the sign is immediately removed, I would not feel that this same shape in different colours was a sign that I need to adhere to. It is almost like an unwritten contract that we will abide by the direction of certain combinations of colour and shape.
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