The Red and the Black

Here's a local photo I saw posted on Twitter:


It was given as an example of how not to position a bike-locking post (um... yeah!), but the thing that caught my attention was the use of red and black in the realtor's name on the bench sign.

Think about it. Why are some of the letters red and some black? (Answer below.)

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For whatever idiosyncratic reason, I focused on the red letters and saw them as REMEDITH. Finally I made the transposition and realized the designer intended me to read left to right instead of top to bottom, and when I did that, it became a disjointed MEREDITH, her last name. Oh, I get it!

I didn't realize until it was pointed out by someone else on Twitter that the black letters also read as ANDREA if you follow the same order.

Well, duh. At some point this woman realized her names contain her name twice and she (or her designer) thought that was so clever, they just had to use it in her sign.

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone who sees this sign while passing by will ever realize what's going on with it. They'll just wonder why some of the letters are red and some are black, as I did, and maybe the red letters will spring out more with ME as the first thing that registers.

Not a way to sell houses.