by Dave Atkin

The Theory Of Up – Building Signage Planning

“Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up?”  asked the Mary Poppins actress Julie Andrews. perhaps referring to how no one, but her filmic wards, watched her character arrive at the Banks family home.“Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn’t notice.”She wasn’t alone in this observation. Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the Scouting movement for boys had given a positive use for this “fact” years before: “If you need to hide, hide in a tree, no one ever looks up”  I’m paraphrasing; from memory of what the great man wrote, illustrated by a between the wars ink drawing of a plucky young scout, looking down through oak leaves to where two men with rifles and WWI Kaiser style helmets searched beneath – without discovering the brave lad.