How to Lose the Message

There must be a special hell experienced by the graphic designers who make signs for shopping malls. Is the result of their work always stupid, or is it just me?

This is the latest from Rosedale Mall in Roseville, Minnesota:


Here's the brief: Make a sign telling visitors the mall has free wifi. Sounds simple, and the bottom part gets to that message pretty directly.

But what is that thing at the top? Is it supposed to be a heart made of a phone and a price tag? With wifi waves emanating from it?

And who thought "ShopPings" was an effective slogan or name or whatever it's supposed to be? When I first saw this, I thought Pings was the name of a store in the mall (Shop Pings!) even though I'm familiar with what ping means. What percent of the mall-shopping public knows what ping means?

And even if someone does know, is pinging what 99.999% of shoppers would plan do with the free wifi at a shopping mall? Are there many developers hanging out in the hallway pinging devices?

I can only imagine that shoppers look at the sign and ignore the top part completely, or perhaps they don't even see the key message about free wifi because it's overwhelmed by incomprehensible stuff above.