Finally, the long-awaited "door post" arrives.

First, apologies for not updating this space before now. Having a pinched nerve in your arm and keyboarding are not things that go together very well.

To make up for my absence, I decided to finally do the "door post" I've been promising since Day 1.

This is the entrance to the location near my home of a nationwide chain of toy stores. I've been going to this store for literally years and something has always bothered me about the entrance. In fact, it was this entrance that sparked the idea to create this blog in the first place.

Notice that the entire facade of the store is a bright yellow, practically visible from space. Very friendly and inviting. At the very bottom corner of this mass of yellow there is one red spot. 

That "red spot" is actually the ENTRANCE to the store:

 

The exit is the one highlighted by that massive yellow field....

WHY did they make the entrance to their store the ONLY red on the entire building? 

Red is recognized around the globe as meaning "danger", "stay out", "warning". If I'm in a foreign country and don't speak the language but see a red sign, I know that I should not go past it. Despite this, the owners of this business made the entrance to their business this "DO NOT CROSS" color.

This fact was made very clear to me when I visited the store recently and saw a little old lady standing in front of the store. Clearly, English was not her primarily language. In fact, I doubt if she even spoke it. This little grandma was standing at the YELLOW doors, trying to pry them open. The fact that RED = STAY OUT was so engrained in her that she refused to think that the other set of doors could possibly be the entrance to this store for children. I had to physically take her by the arm and lead her to the red doors.

The entire architectural design of the front of this building is designed to draw your attention to the EXIT. They could very easily change the signs around, move around a few displays and the design would be perfect- a huge yellow expanse calling out to customers and one spot of red warning them of where NOT to go.

LESSON LEARNED: Colors matter. They are not just for "artistic beauty". Ignore them at your peril.