Would a stop sign still have the same meaning if it weren’t red?
Imagine driving down a road and you see this but it is black instead of red. Does it still mean stop to you? Or does it mean something else? Now think about if this were in another language.
Having the sign be in red helps identify that this is a stop sign to people who may not be able to read the sign. If this were black like the sign above the message may not be clear to everyone. Having the sign be red not only in one part of the world but also across the world helps make the design successful. Without the color of the stop sign the stop sign is not as powerful of a design. It just becomes another street sign. This is an example of how color helps transform the design from being adequate to something that is identifiable worldwide. For many designs such as a car or bicycle the color does not help distinguish the design and how effective it is, it just enhances the aesthetic value of the object. If looking at a the color of the pipes to distinguish what pipe has waste water versus clean filtered water color plays a huge factor in the design. For most designs color is just a component of the aesthetics but for some designs it determines if it is effective or not. The most effective aspect of the stop sign is not the word stop but the red association with the word stop.
