Highway 280 in Saint Paul is lined with billboards, some of which I've written about before. Currently, there's a billboard on the east side (northbound) that probably has the worst design of all time.
There's an unwritten rule about billboards: they shouldn't have more than seven to 10 words at most. And I would add, their visual elements should be clearly understandable to the viewer.
This photo is slightly blurry (my apologies) but even if it wasn't, that wouldn't help much:
I've been trying to figure out what this billboard image is for weeks when I drove past, or even what the words say. After a few tries, I figured out it had something to do with kidneys and getting tested for something, but until I took this photo and squinted at it, I had no idea that:
- The red stuff in the middle is red smoke sent up from a flare, held by a hand at the bottom center of the billboard. We had speculated they were flower petals, or maybe blood.
- The first line of centered type says (I think! I still can barely read it) "For those with high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes"
- The slightly more readable reversed white bars say, "Are your kidneys sending an" and "for hidden heart risk?"
- In between the two white bars are the partially obstructed letters SOS, with a cutesy heart in the letter O. Because there has to be a second heart to go with the larger smoke heart (you know, the one you couldn't tell was a heart in the first place).
- Then there's "Talk to a doctor about the uACR* urine test" down in the dark reversed bar near the bottom. Now that's a memorable name for a test. Once I realized that wording referred to a test, I've tried to remember the test's name several times and never managed it.
- Finally, I only realized there was a little logo for "Detect the SOS" at bottom right and the name of a drug company, Boehringer Ingelheim, at top left when I looked at the photo. I never even noticed them while I was trying to decipher the many main parts of the message.
- At bottom left is something I still can't read, just above the dark bar across the billboard. There's also some tiny type at bottom left, below the dark bar. Maybe that relates to the asterisk after the name of the uACR test. Lawyers must have insisted on those, since there's no way anyone could possibly read them.
And isn't it so great how they wasted so much space on empty blue sky, while cramming all those words in too small a size into the center of the billboard?
For those wishing to count, there are 20 words in the four parts of the main headline, and nine words in the "talk to your doctor" call to action. I have no idea how many words are in the two other small lines.


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