Welcome to another edition of The Real Kiwiana (RK). Today's topic is ... SIGNAGE!
These pix have been gathered by me over my travels in the North Island over the past 6 months. Did you know there are entire departments, institutes, and work-groups -- even university courses -- devoted to the study and making of superior, transparent, culturally transcendent signage? Why? Because it is a crucial part of communication. Gestural, verbal, visual, instantaneous. Holonic. Or whatever. Anyway, these signs are the best postcards of New Zealand going, and may serve as fantastic prototypes for people interested in having a career in signage and/or communication. These struck my fancy and I thought they deserved some broadcasting.
Exhibit 1: Toilet smear campaign
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| The toilet thief caper: Public Toilets, Colville, Coromandel Peninsula |
Exhibit 2: Tunnel directions for Noah's Ark through Middle Earth
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| Inexplicable infrastructural information, Wellington tunnel. |
Exhibit 3: Kinipela's paternal legacy
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| Daddy Love/Love Daddy Town, Coromandel Peninsula |
Exhibit 4: Beware the Flightless Chicken
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| Somewhere in Northland ... |
Exhibit 5: Taihape boasts a corrugated iron gumboot. Oakune has a giant carrot. Taumaranui is the place you go to bottom out. Dargaville is NZ's "Kumara Capital". Get out your peelers!
Exhibit 6: Once I was asked "What if it [life, love, New Zealand] goes bad?". Well if I end up in Te Kuiti, "Shearing Capital of the World", you'll know!
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With apologies to the good people of Te Kuiti.
Don't worry, I'm embarrassed for you. |
Exhibit 7: One of the best uses of cut-away lettering and iron ever!
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"Fire and the Land" display on a hill near Cape Reinga, Northland.
Yes, that is real land as captured through the sign. Letters as frames for the environment. |
Exhibit 8: Cape Reinga, the Middle of Everywhere
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| Situation critical: Vancouver is double the distance from NZ to Antarctica. Eek! |
Exhibits 9a, b, and c: So, this probably is not the road to the fabled "The Bluff" surf spot on 90 Mile Beach. Just a deserted place with no mobile reception where I have a high likelihood of getting killed. Nice.
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| Northland forestry road, Te Kao. I paid a "gold coin" to get into this mess! REFUND! |
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Theoretically true.
If I had persisted beyond the killer wild horses and stuff, I would have reached the Tasman. |
Exhibit 10: Scottish Inventory and The Floating Kiwi Apostrophe
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| Goes well with the fish n' chip's, and the womens's wear. |
Exhibit 11: NO SMELLY FOOD! WE OWN THIS KITCHEN!
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| Fish: The Other Smelly Food. |
Exhibit 12: Mantrol(l): Kawakawa, Northland.
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I assume this billboard refers to driving speed.
But it could refer to something else.
Like thinking of old nuns or your mother at the crucial moment.
Know what I mean? |
Exhibit 13: "Homekill Month". WTF?! I left town as quickly as I could!
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| Kawakawa, Northland. |
Exhibit 14: Newfies of the South
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| Towai Hotel, Towai, Northland. |
Exhibit 15: Issues in Dargaville
Exhibit 16: No Mucking Around!
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| No shirt no shoes: service. Dirty gumboots: no service. Towai, Northland. |
Exhibit 17: Sign of a great surf day!
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| Kinipela, Somewhere on the Tutukaka Coast. |
Social Signs: A Parting Note Regarding Culture and Communication in Select Nations of the Former Commonwealth
You know how when Canadians say things like, "we should get together sometime", it's really a hugely elaborate social ritual that (among Canadians) really means, "I'd like the opportunity to perhaps make contact with you again to see if, in fact, you are the kind of person I would theoretically like to invite into my house to spend more time with me in my private space and I will judge by your response to this probe just how much you actually may or may not be potentially compatible with me and my private space known as my home and after we have gone through this ritual for the next five meetings in public spaces, I will know if, indeed, you should come to my house for further social contact and at that point I will be well satisfied that we are possibly more than passing acquaintances and even maybe friends"? Well, when Kiwis say, "drop in for a coffee sometime" to a complete stranger, it's code for: "drop in for a coffee sometime". Nuff said.
