Why designers should get some god damn grammar (aka ‘when signs go bad #4′)

Some of my best friends are graphic designers. Of course, some of what they do is gross, and I wish they would do it in the privacy of their own homes. But I’m glad that we live in tolerant society where they can flaunt their ideas, even though what they do is by no means comparable to real work.

I’m not designaphobic, no siree. I even went to one of those awful ‘design gatherings’ once. Of course I left as soon as I realised where I was, in case I caught ‘design’ and got some unnatural cravings for crayons.

But however wonderfully open minded I am, there is one thing that I cannot accept.

Listen up, designers of the world – you might be the life and soul of the genepool, but this world is not yours, and you are living here thanks to non-designer generosity. So there are some things you must accept and adapt to in order to fit into our neat, grey world. And the first and most important of these is grammar.

Today’s lesson: its.

Its means ‘belonging to it‘. “My dog likes cats. Its favourites are lolcats.”

It’s means ‘it is‘. “Have you seen my cat? Oh, it’s in the dog.”

Now look at the picture below, taken on a street near my house in Newcastle, and notice the mistake. Seriously, I cannot believe that this estate agent board was designed, approved, printed and then plastered around the north of England and nobody noticed the glaring error.

I can (and do) blame the designer who created it, but of course everyone else down the line also has to take responsibility for allowing something so stupid to get through.