Trompe L'oeil

Summary

99% Invisible: Episode - Trompe L'oeil
Release Date: October 15, 2024
Host: Roman Mars

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Introduction

In the October 15, 2024 episode of 99% Invisible, host Roman Mars delves into the ingenious world of design tricks intended to deceive the eye and the mind. This episode, aptly titled "Trompe L'oeil", explores three captivating stories where design is used to mislead: military camouflage designed to thwart enemy torpedoes, highway markings that manipulate drivers' speed perceptions, and guerrilla sign-making aimed at improving public wayfinding.

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1. Camouflage: Razzle Dazzle Ships

Time Stamps: [01:40] - [09:32]

The episode begins with an exploration of camouflage and its evolution, featuring insights from Roy Behrens, an art professor and camouflage expert. Behrens distinguishes between high similarity camouflage (background matching) and disruptive camouflage (figure disruption). While the former blends objects seamlessly into their surroundings, the latter breaks up the outline, making it difficult to discern the object's shape.

Roman Mars highlights the most spectacular application of disruptive camouflage: razzle dazzle used on ships during World War I. Unlike traditional camouflage aimed at making ships invisible, razzle dazzle involved painting bold, erratic patterns on vessels to confuse enemy submarines. Behrens explains, “Disruptive camouflage breaks up the figure, making it difficult to see the ship as a single continuous entity” ([02:34]).

The effectiveness of razzle dazzle is underscored by its ability to disorient torpedo operators. By distorting perceptions of a ship's speed and direction, razzle dazzle could lead to significant errors in targeting. As Mars recounts, these patterns could mislead submarine captains by as much as 55 degrees, significantly increasing a ship's chances of survival ([09:19]).

Despite initial skepticism and criticism from traditional Navy personnel—who mockingly compared the patterns to a prostitute’s clothing—the razzle dazzle technique proved its worth. The episode emphasizes that while the theater of war has evolved, the principles of dazzle camouflage continue to influence modern military design.

Notable Quote:

Roy Behrens: “Figure disruption makes it very difficult for us to look at the figure and to see it as only a single continuous thing.” ([02:34])

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2. Highway Speed Perception: Built for Speed

Time Stamps: [11:45] - [20:02]

The second segment shifts focus to highway design and its psychological impact on drivers, featuring author and transportation expert Tom Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt discusses how seemingly mundane elements like white lane markings can significantly influence driving behavior.

A study by psychology researcher Dennis Schaefer revealed that most drivers vastly underestimate the length of highway stripes. While participants estimated the stripes to be about two feet long, actual measurements showed stripes to be 10 feet long with 30 feet between them. This discrepancy plays into a broader design strategy where long, uniform lines and wide vistas create an illusion of traveling at a reasonable speed, even when drivers may be exceeding speed limits.

Vanderbilt explains that highway engineers designed roads to be "forgiving," aiming to minimize collision effects and guide drivers towards safe navigation. However, this design inadvertently encourages speeding by manipulating drivers' perception of velocity. Long dividing lines and clear roadways suggest a less hurried pace, leading drivers to rely more on visual cues than on their actual speedometers.

The episode also touches on the social implications of such designs. Suburban environments, influenced by these highway standards, have become hubs for high-speed commerce with sprawling parking lots and drive-throughs, inadvertently creating some of the most dangerous driving environments in America.

Notable Quote:

Tom Vanderbilt: “The highway's meant for uninterrupted, fast flowing traffic. Get people from point A to point B as quickly as possible with no interruptions.” ([15:29])

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3. Guerrilla Public Service: Richard Ancrum’s Sign Mastery

Time Stamps: [25:09] - [34:18]

The final story explores an act of guerrilla public service undertaken by artist Richard Ancrum in Los Angeles. Frustrated by inadequate freeway signage, Ancrum took it upon himself to create and install a missing Interstate 5 North shield above the 110 Freeway.

David Weinberg narrates the meticulous process Ancrum followed: from studying Caltrans' signage specifications to crafting an exact replica using aluminum and ensuring the new sign blended seamlessly with existing signs. Ancrum’s dedication is evident when he states, “The whole idea was to be sort of a public servant, or actually to show what you can do with artwork” ([27:04]).

On the morning of August 5, 2001, Ancrum, disguised as a Caltrans worker, successfully installed the sign without immediate detection. The sign remained in place for over eight years, a testament to Ancrum’s craftsmanship and subtlety. Eventually, when Caltrans discovered the addition, they were impressed by its quality and incorporated Ancrum’s design into official signage, acknowledging his contribution.

The segment concludes with a brief mention of similar guerrilla signage projects in New York City, highlighting the fine line between public improvement and unauthorized alteration.

Notable Quote:

Richard Ancrum: “What you can do with artwork. You can put it in plain sight and have a functioning working thing for everyone to use.” ([27:17])

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Conclusion

In this episode of 99% Invisible, Roman Mars masterfully uncovers the subtle yet profound ways in which design can deceive and influence. From wartime ship camouflage designed to mislead enemy forces to highway markings that alter our perception of speed, and finally to grassroots efforts to improve public navigation through guerrilla signage, the episode underscores the pervasive power of design in shaping our experiences and behaviors.

By weaving together historical anecdotes, expert insights, and compelling narratives, "Trompe L'oeil" not only entertains but also invites listeners to become more observant and appreciative of the intricate designs that surround them every day.

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Notable Quotes Compilation:

1. Roy Behrens: “Figure disruption makes it very difficult for us to look at the figure and to see it as only a single continuous thing.” ([02:34])

2. Tom Vanderbilt: “The highway's meant for uninterrupted, fast flowing traffic. Get people from point A to point B as quickly as possible with no interruptions.” ([15:29])

3. Richard Ancrum: “What you can do with artwork. You can put it in plain sight and have a functioning working thing for everyone to use.” ([27:17])

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This episode beautifully illustrates how design serves not just aesthetic purposes but also functional and psychological ones, often operating beneath the surface of our daily awareness.

Transcript

[Roman Mars]

Experiences make life more meaningful, and with Mastercard's priceless.com you can immerse yourself in unforgettable experiences in dining, sports, art, entertainment and more in over 40 destinations. From a round of golf with a legendary player to a cooking class with a celebrity chef, you can fuel your passions and create lasting memories. Explore experiences [e-mail] exclusively for MasterCard cardholders. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. Some Things should be Boring like banking. Boring is safe and reliable. You don't want your bank to be surprising. Surprising is for podcasts about seemingly insignificant inventions that impact our lives, not banks. PNC bank strives to be boring with your money so you can be happily fulfilled with your life. PNC Bank Brilliantly boring since 1865 Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a service mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC bank national association member FDIC this is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Today we have three stories about designs meant to fool you. Camouflage meant to fool U boats, highways designed to fool your brain into going way faster than it should want to, and impeccably made fake signs meant to guide you to the right freeway. Three classic favorite 99 PIs, completely updated, remixed and rescored. Enjoy.

[Roy Behrens]

I think if you ask somebody on the street, what is camouflage? I believe the most common answer would be to say, well, it's a figure and it's being hidden by being blended with its background.

[Roman Mars]

Scientists today call that background matching.

[Roy Behrens]

I call that high similarity camouflage.

[Roman Mars]

That's Roy Behrens.

[Roy Behrens]

I'm Roy Behrens and I teach in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa. I teach graphic design and the history of design.

[Roman Mars]

Behrens is also one of the foremost camouflage experts.

[Roy Behrens]

Well, I wouldn't go that far.

[Roman Mars]

High similarity or blending is just one type of camouflage. It's kind of the boring one. But another type of camouflage that you can find both in nature and in military use is disruptive camouflage.

[Roy Behrens]

I call it figure disruption, figure disguise because it breaks up the figure.

[Roman Mars]

It's the opposite of high similarity camouflage. It's high difference.

[Roy Behrens]

So you're making it very difficult for us to look at the figure and to see it as only a single continuous thing. Figure druption dis dis dis.

[Roman Mars]

Zebra stripes have long been thought to be a form of disruptive camouflage. The stripes make it harder for a predator to distinguish one zebra. When the zebras are in a large herd, the stripes might also make zebras Less attractive to blood sucking horseflies. But I digress. But when it comes to humans, the greatest, most jaw droppingly spectacular application of disruptive camouflage by the military is razzle dazzle.

[Roy Behrens]

Dazzle camouflage strictly applies to ship camouflage. And even more strictly, it applies to World War I ship camouflage. And it came about because it was discovered that it's almost impossible to make a ship invisible on the ocean. The horizon is changing in color, it's changing in amount of light.

[Roman Mars]

So there are all kinds of conditions that make it so a constantly moving ship can't blend into the background of the sea. And even if you could make a ship invisible, you still have smoke coming.

[Roy Behrens]

Out of the smokestack. So it's not as if you're hiding the ship at all.

[Roman Mars]

So the less heavily armored ships were sitting ducks.

[Roy Behrens]

The crisis came about at the time that the US had not yet entered the war.

[Roman Mars]

Remember, this is World War I.

[Roy Behrens]

It was the British ships that were being sunk and the German submarines were sinking as many 50 ships a week. Many of those ships were merchant ships and they were bringing supplies to England, which is an island, of course, and it really depended on those. And then also there was armaments and other things that were being secretly taken there too.

[Roman Mars]

So the design solution was not about invisibility, it was about disruption.

[Roy Behrens]

A number of artists decided that the best way to avoid getting torpedoed was not to make the ship invisible, but to make it hard to hit. That's why these kind of erratic, crazy quilt patterns came about, and that's why they were used in that war.

[Roman Mars]

It's going to be hard to picture this, but I want you to try. There was once a time when military ships, even US ships by this point were painted with, and I quote this from an anonymous article from the New York Times from 1918. Any New Yorker will see at anchor or coming in or out, numerous ships whose painted sides reveal such wild extravagances of form and color as to make the landsman open his eyes with amazement and mystification.

[Roy Behrens]

Black and white was very common. They consist of stripes and swirls and kind of arabesque, almost art nouveau shapes. Blue was used predominantly, especially in the British versions. But I think you'd be surprised at the range of colors. There were reds that were sometimes used and greens and really quite intense oranges.

[Roman Mars]

Another unidentified US journalist wrote, you should see our fleet. It's camouflaged so it looks like a flock of sea going Easter eggs.

[Roy Behrens]

During World War I dazzle, ship camouflage was absolutely fascinating to the public. You have to remember that this is happening just a few years after the. What's called the Armory show in New York. It's the first international show of modern art in this country. And it was the introductory show of cubism, futurism, all of those things that people made fun of. And they thought that, you know, that these are really crazy directions for artists to be going in. So that when this happened, people looked at those ships and they said, oh, it's a cubist nightmare. It's futurists. They've taken over the world.

[Roman Mars]

As you can probably guess, there were plenty of people who hated dazzle camouflage. Traditional Navy men mostly.

[Roy Behrens]

They compared it to the clothing that a prostitute would wear, and they made fun of it.

[Roman Mars]

Here's how it worked.

[Roy Behrens]

I can lead you through the steps.

[Roman Mars]

At the time, torpedoes fired from U boats were quite slow, maybe taking a couple of minutes to reach their target. So the person firing the torpedo had to lead the target. He had to anticipate where the target ship was going to be when the torpedo arrived.

[Roy Behrens]

So he had to calculate how to do that. And that very much depended on knowing the exact angle it's headed toward. That's terribly, terribly important. And the other thing is that you have to figure out the speed of the ship, because then you'll know how far it can go by the time the torpedo gets there.

[Roman Mars]

The dazzle camouflage certainly made the ship stand out, but the bulging shapes and vivid hues also made it difficult to determine the speed and direction of the moving ship.

[Roy Behrens]

It's preying on our assumptions about things looking smaller as they are more distant. So you could paint perspective patterns on a ship that would make it look like it was turning in a different direction, when, in fact, you're actually seeing them frontally and they're absolutely flat.

[Roman Mars]

The dazzle patterns broke up the figure. So it could look like it was shorter than it really was, or it could make it hard to tell if there was one ship or multiple ships.

[Roy Behrens]

They even painted fake bow waves on them. And they would paint the fake bow wave either on the front to make it look like the ship was going faster than it was actually going, because that was one way of calculating that. Or they would paint the bow wave on the back. And so you would glance at it while you're looking through this periscope, and you might conclude that, oh, it's going in that direction, not in the other direction. So then you surface again to calculate where you're going to shoot, and the thing is gone. It's an entirely different direction and location than you imagined.

[Roman Mars]

These patterns weren't just slapped onto the side of giant ships, hoping that they'd be confusing enough to be effective. Camouflurs. That's what they're called. The camouflurs tested toy models. By inviting in experienced submarine captains to peer through periscopes and report what angle they thought the models were pointed.

[Roy Behrens]

They determined that sometimes on really effectively camouflaged ships, the calculation of the ship captains could be off as much as 55 degrees.

[Roman Mars]

Dazzle only had to screw up the torpedo Gunner's estimate by 8 degrees for the target ship to effectively avoid a torpedo. The theater of war has changed, so camouflage has changed with it, but there is still dazzle to be found.

[Roy Behrens]

Actually, if you look at military craft today, there is still dazzle being practiced, but of course, the conditions have changed. Just as in World War I, this came out of those particular set of conditions. We have to say, well, those aren't the conditions that we have now. So what would be most effective today? If you look at aircraft, it's broken up very often. If you look at ships, some of them are broken up through these geometric patterns. If you look at some camouflage uniforms, infantry uniforms, around the world, you'll find all kinds of breakup with dazzle and so forth, or tanks or trucks and so forth.

[Roman Mars]

But I am sad to report that there are no longer flocks of seagulling Easter eggs. That was episode 65, Razzle Dazzle. A 99pi listener named Dylan Fry is a graphic design student at the University of Wisconsin Stout, and for a class project, he created a transcript of that episode in zine format. It is so cool. We'll have a link to it in the show notes and on our website, where we also have tons of pictures of Razzle Dazzle ships, which you need to go look at immediately. They will change your life. Up next, another story of fooling the eye and fooling the mind. Episode 68, Built for Speed. I want you to conjure an image in your mind of the white stripes. Not those white stripes, but the white stripes that divide the lanes of traffic going in the same direction on a major highway. How long are those stripes? You can spread your arms out to estimate if you want to. Over the course of many years, a psychology researcher named Dennis Schaefer at Ohio State asked students from many different parts of the country this question, and the.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Most common response was two feet.

[Roman Mars]

So if you're like most people, you estimated that those white stripes are 2ft long, maybe a little more. But if you did, you'd be very Very wrong. This is Tom Vanderbilt.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

My name is Tom Vanderbilt. I'm a writer in New York and author of Traffic why We Drive the Way we do and what It Says About Us.

[Roman Mars]

Every three pages of Tom's terrific book, Traffic, I could probably turn into a 99% invisible episode. But back to the highway.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Well, early on in my research, I was talking to a highway engineer, and.

[Roman Mars]

He said, if your car is ever broken down on the side of the.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Road, have you ever been sort of forced to get out of your vehicle on a highway?

[Roman Mars]

Just take a moment to notice how strange the landscape is if you happen.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

To be standing near a road sign. These road signs are huge. I mean, they're not meant to be experienced as humans on foot. They're meant to be experienced at 75 miles an hour with that clear view typeface, perfectly visible retroreflective.

[Roman Mars]

And then there are the white stripes.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

If you actually kind of got out of your car and were able to walk on a closed highway and walk from one end of those stripes to the other, you'd find that, I mean, years ago in the United States, the highway standard was 15ft long, which is longer than a car itself.

[Roman Mars]

Current Federal Highway Administration guidelines suggest a length of 10ft with 30ft between the dashes.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

That's something that is shocking to people.

[Roman Mars]

And remember, most people in the Schaeffer study said that those stripes were two feet long.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

That's such a vast gulf there between. It's not, you know, it's not sort of like, you know, they're actually five feet. We thought they were too, you know, margin of error kind of thing.

[Roman Mars]

And it goes back to this fundamental point that when you're in a car at high speeds, you're experiencing only a sense of the landscape rather than the actual land.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

This kind of sense of the landscape has been presented to you to essentially make you feel comfortable and to make.

[Roman Mars]

A highway work in what are really evolutionarily ridiculous speeds for a human to travel.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

You have this big flat, wide open, you know, kind of stretch of road that even if you have a 65 mile an hour sign, the message of the road is telling you something entirely different. And I think that's really where a lot of our behavior comes from. Sometimes you have sort of willful speeding, willful kind of law breaking. But a lot of it is just people are paying attention to the visual messaging of the road, not to their speedometer.

[Roman Mars]

Long dividing lines and clear vistas give the illusion that you're going at a reasonable speed. As soon as something encroaches into view. You get a sense of how fast you're going. That's one reason why those temporary concrete walls that crews put up right next to the road during construction are so unnerving. The error in perception of white stripe length is attributed to the fact that when we drive on the highway, we tend to look so far ahead that we usually only experience the dashes and gaps when they are very far away and at an angle so they look shorter. But there's no consensus as to why people all over the country were so consistently wrong with the 2ft estimate.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

It's, yeah, become one of my favorite cocktail party, you know, facts.

[Roman Mars]

Mine too.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Stump the driver with this white stripes information.

[Roman Mars]

I don't want to leave the impression that the wide dividing lines are uniform though.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

You won't find, you know, 10 foot highway lines on say, a boulevard in New York City.

[Roman Mars]

And you probably won't find 10 or 15 foot stripes on bridges or highway on ramps.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Or let's hope you don't, because that's kind of an entirely inappropriate design language for that space.

[Roman Mars]

Limited access highways are designed for a very precise purpose.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

The highway's meant for uninterrupted, fast flowing traffic. Get people from point A to point B as quickly as possible with no interruptions. I mean, that sort of environment does not work in cities or suburbs.

[Roman Mars]

The problem is when that approach is grafted into places where it doesn't belong.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

I think we're actually kind of paying the price for this right now. In some suburban environments where you find these kind of arterial highways that were built almost to an highway engineering standard with again, these long sight lines, wide roads encouraging people to go fast. And then we went and built all kinds of development along those arterial highways, which was never really supposed to be there.

[Roman Mars]

With so many people driving on these roads, they became absolutely irresistible to commerce.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

It's kind of the new American main street, right where you have your costcos and your fast food and all sorts of in and out parking lots, driveways, drive throughs, yet people also going very fast. And a guy named Eric Dumbaugh does a lot of research suggesting that these are really some of the most dangerous places to currently drive in America. Not crowded urban cities, which is what a lot of people would think.

[Roman Mars]

The whole approach is called the forgiving road.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

The idea was that, you know, to first try to minimize the potential that a crash could happen through again, through lack of obstacles, generous sight lines, all these sorts of things. But then if a crash did happen to kind of mitigate the effects of what would happen to not punish the driver for the mistake that he will inevitably make? I'm quoting some of the language from the time. So you see that nowadays in things like in California, you'll have your guardrails that are sort of wire guardrails, that if car strikes that guardrail, it tends to catch on the guardrail rather than being bounced back out into traffic, which causes another series of collisions.

[Roman Mars]

So this forgiving road is a positive thing in terms of good safety engineering.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

But they were so sort of seduced by it that the call was made to bring it into even the surface street network. So things like street trees began to be deemed hazards by engineers, just outright hazards. I mean, and that makes sense on a high speed country road. But if you're talking about residential street, where you're not supposed to be going more than 25 anyway, is the presence of a street tree on the side of the road where it's providing shade and comfort to pedestrians. You know, is that the same sort of hazard? Is it even a hazard at all?

[Roman Mars]

The conclusion many planners came to was yes, trees are a hazard.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

You find pre war suburbs, you have the street, a set of trees, and then the sidewalk. Postwar, this sort of shift began to happen where the trees were moved on the other side of the sidewalk.

[Roman Mars]

Suddenly pedestrians were put in the position of being the buffer between drivers and those menacing trees.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

There was sort of a pernicious thing that happened here, is that as you move those trees away, the visual sensation of the road became wider. And if there's one kind of iron law of traffic engineering, it gets into this visual perception thing as well. The wider a road is or is.

[Roman Mars]

Perceived to be, the faster driver, speed tends to increase.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

And of course, the final. If you look at 1990s era suburbia, that they just kind of eliminated the sidewalk and the trees altogether. So that was the final solution, just eliminate any kind of hazard.

[Roman Mars]

And Tom Vanderbilt says you can almost date a subdivision's development based on that shift.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

This points to one of the problems about road engineering is that humans tend to consume the extra engineering measures that have been built in for their safety. Much in the same way. I like to draw the analogy with some of the research that's been done on food packaging by Brian Wanzik at Cornell University, doing experiments where if you give people, just random group people, large buckets of popcorn filled to the top with popcorn and give them a smaller amount of popcorn in a smaller package, they'll just eat more of the larger package. Whether it has nothing to do with their level of hunger. It's just the size of the package influences their behavior and I think a lot of our road environments are sort of like that. They're over engineered for the safety and then we tend to consume a lot of the extras getting us back to this kind of homeostatic edge that we're always kind of playing with, I think.

[Roman Mars]

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[Tom Vanderbilt]

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[Roman Mars]

Article living room set. I replaced my junky free and craigslisted.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Furniture with a very nice set from the Seni Collection.

[Roman Mars]

I got a sofa, love seat and chair all in matching volcanic gray were.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Delivered right to my door.

[Roman Mars]

All I did was pop open the boxes and screw some legs on. I am so much more excited to have people over now that I'm not embarrassed of my furniture.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

I did in fact use this offer code that Rowan is about to tell you.

[Roman Mars]

Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com 99 and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's article.com 99 for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. We're back with the story from reporter David Weinberg. This is episode 152, guerrilla public service. @ some point in your life you've probably encountered a problem in the built world. Something that was poorly designed and the fix was obvious to you. Maybe a door that opened the wrong way or a poorly painted marker on the road. I notice this kind of stuff all the time. Even more so now after creating this show. I'm sorry if you do too, because you listen to this show and mostly when we see these things, we grumble on the inside and then do nothing.

[David Weinberg]

There are all sorts of reasons for our inertia. We don't know how to fix it. It's not ours to fix. We could get in trouble.

[Roman Mars]

That's producer David Weinberg.

[David Weinberg]

You might notice these little design flaws for years, silently fuming, until one day.

[Roman Mars]

He called me and said, you know, okay, we're doing it.

[David Weinberg]

It was early Sunday morning, August 5, 2001, in Los Angeles, California. Richard Ancrum and a group of friends were on the Fourth Street Bridge over the 110 Freeway. They were about to commit a crime.

[Richard Ancrum]

It's going to be a high profile, dangerous situation. Not only could I get arrested, I could kill somebody. Really, I was terrified of that.

[David Weinberg]

But let's back up. About 20 years prior, Richard Ancrum, an artist living in Orange county, was driving north on the 110 Freeway. As he passed through downtown Los Angeles, he was going to merge onto another freeway, the I5 north. But he missed the exit and got lost. And for some reason it just stuck with him.

[Roman Mars]

Years later, when Richard moved to downtown Los Angeles, he was driving on the same stretch of freeway where he'd gotten lost a decade before. When he looked up at the big green rectangular sign suspended above, I realized.

[Richard Ancrum]

Why I missed the exit is because it wasn't adequately signed.

[Roman Mars]

Bad wayfinding.

[David Weinberg]

The exit for the i5 wasn't indicated on the green overhead sign. There was even a big open space where there should have been a blue and red interstate shield. And above that, it should have said north. It was clear to Richard that Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, had made a mistake.

[Roman Mars]

So Richard, an artist and sign painter, decided to make the Interstate 5 North shield himself and install it in the place he thought it should have been all along, high above the 110 freeway. He would call it an act of guerrilla public service.

[Richard Ancrum]

The whole idea was to be sort of a public servant, or actually to show what you can do with artwork. You can put it in plain sight and have a functioning working thing for everyone to use.

[David Weinberg]

Richard started by studying LA freeway signs, holding up pantone swatches to perfectly match the paint color. He dangled over bridges to measure the exact dimensions of other signs. And most importantly, he downloaded the Necronomicon of California road signage.

[Roman Mars]

The MutKid, the MutCD, the manual on Uniform Traffic Control Device devices. Quote, to provide for uniform standards and specifications for all official traffic control devices in California. It's not a beach read. I have it. It's more of a lazy Sunday afternoon read.

[Richard Ancrum]

All the specs are online so people can bid on projects.

[David Weinberg]

Richard wanted his sign to be built to the exact specifications of Caltrans, which were designed to be read by motorists traveling at high speeds.

[Richard Ancrum]

The shield with a 5 on it, is 3ft roughly high and wide. It's less than an eighth of an inch, barely an eighth of an inch thick aluminum. It's still pretty strong. And above that, I put the word north, and that was about 14 inches by 5ft. And again, I used the same typeface that was there and the same signs. I tried to match everything as close as I could so it wouldn't be obvious. Caltrans didn't do it.

[David Weinberg]

Richard's brand new additions had to blend in perfectly with the existing signage, which had been collecting dirt and smog for decades.

[Richard Ancrum]

I sprayed the whole thing with a really thin glaze of gray to knock down the shine.

[David Weinberg]

After he finished it, Richard signed his name on the back of it with a black marker, like a painter signing a canvas. Then came the next phase of the project, the installation, which he planned with the precision of a bank heist.

[Roman Mars]

He bought a disguise, a white hard hat, and an orange vest so he'd look like a Caltrans worker.

[Richard Ancrum]

Basically looked the part as best I could.

[Roman Mars]

And he made a decal for his pickup truck meant to look vaguely official that said aesthetic deconstruction.

[David Weinberg]

The night before the installation, Richard drove out to the site and hid some of his supplies so they'd be easy to get to. The next morning when I interviewed him, he took me to the spot and showed me where he'd stashed his stuff.

[Richard Ancrum]

Basically here and right now, the ivy isn't that thick, but it was a lot thicker. And I had basically behind that tree, it stashed the ladder and the signs and stuff.

[David Weinberg]

After he hid his things, he climbed a tree and just sat there going through everything in his head.

[Richard Ancrum]

I just sort of calmed myself down by being there and, and hanging around with it. The night before, Richard was worried that.

[David Weinberg]

He might drop the sign or one of his tools onto the road below. Drivers going 60 plus miles an hour would have no time to react if something landed on the road in front of them, or worse. Onto their car.

[Richard Ancrum]

That was the scariest thing of the whole project, is if somebody got hurt, you know, I'd have to live with that. And then the project, I'd have to can it, because it would have defeated the whole idea of it.

[David Weinberg]

But despite some reservations, Richard was pretty confident he could pull the whole thing off. And he'd gone too far to turn back.

[Roman Mars]

And that brings us back to the morning of August 5, 2001. Richard did not act alone. He asked several friends to film the installation from different vantage points. Amy inoue was one of the friends he enlisted to film. We did it at 6am or 7am on a Sunday morning. It was tense because we all thought we were going to get into trouble. Richard had chosen a Sunday morning to put up the sign, Knowing that there would be little traffic and the morning light rising above the skyscrapers would be just right for filming. What he hadn't anticipated was that caltrans had also picked that morning to do work on the same stretch of highway. Yes, they happened to be doing some other work on the freeway just south of that sign.

[David Weinberg]

When they saw the caltrans workers, they thought about turning back.

[Richard Ancrum]

But I had surmised, after all, this is a pretty large city. There'd be more than one sign crew. My assumption was they'd think the other guy was doing it.

[David Weinberg]

Richard parked his truck, and when everyone was in position with their cameras, he went to work.

[Richard Ancrum]

The hardest part, really was getting over the razor wire with the ladder.

[David Weinberg]

Once he was up on the catwalk, nearly 30ft above the highway, he started screwing in the new sign, Careful not to drop any screws on the cars below.

[Roman Mars]

Halfway into it, we just felt like.

[Roy Behrens]

Okay, he's gonna get away with it.

[Roman Mars]

Look at that. Is that amazing or what?

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Oh, look, he's folding up his stuff.

[Roman Mars]

He's got it up.

[David Weinberg]

The whole thing took less than 30 minutes. As soon as it was up, Richard packed up his ladder, Rushed back to his truck, and blended back into the city. Wow.

[Roman Mars]

Oh, my God. Awesome. I think we all went out to breakfast together afterwards, and we were super relieved and really happy. Only a small group of people knew that the Interstate 5 shield with the word north hanging above the 110 freeway was a forgery. He didn't say to us, don't tell anyone. So our friends all knew about it, and we would drive by it, and we would just all feel really happy about it. But it never sort of managed to leak out past that small group for a while.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

For a while.

[David Weinberg]

For nine months, the secret stayed within A small community. And then Richard's friend Gary leaked the story.

[Roman Mars]

Oh, what the hell, Gary? Why can't you be cool? Just be cool, Gary.

[David Weinberg]

Richard's secret was out to Caltrans and to the press.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

From the fake magnetic sign on his.

[Roman Mars]

Beat up blue truck to work order.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Proclaiming Rush, what he did is against the law. But Caltrans says it has no plans at all to file charges against him.

[Richard Ancrum]

After they found out what had happened, apparently they sent a crew out there to inspect it.

[Roman Mars]

Richard was hoping to get his sign back from Caltrans after they took it down. He was thinking he would hang it in an art gallery. But Caltrans didn't take the sign down.

[Richard Ancrum]

It passed the Caltrans inspection because that's really the final test of how good the artwork is. It stayed up for eight years, nine months and 14 days, I believe. It's not exactly accurate, but it's pretty close to that.

[David Weinberg]

In interviews about the incident with other news organizations, Caltrans didn't exactly condone Richard's handiwork, but they were pretty kind about it.

[Roman Mars]

Here's the Caltrans spokesperson at the time. He did a good job, but we.

[Tom Vanderbilt]

Don'T want him to do it again.

[Roman Mars]

And in fact, he did such a good job that I'd like to offer him a job application. More than eight years after Richard's sign went up, he got a call from a friend who noticed some workers taking it down. Richard contacted Caltrans to ask if he could have his sign back.

[Richard Ancrum]

By the time I tracked him down, it already been crushed into a bail going for China. And who knows what it turned into. Could be a waffle iron by now.

[David Weinberg]

After Caltrans took down Richard's sign, they replaced it with a brand new one. But this time they incorporated his ideas into the new design. They added the five north and the shield not only to that sign, but to two additional ones up the road.

[Roman Mars]

A little epilogue. Richard's highway sign is a happily ever after story. The sign worked. People appreciated it. No one got hurt. Thankfully. Even Caltrans was really pretty nice about the whole thing. There's another gorilla sign story out of New York City. A group that calls itself the Efficient Passenger Project has been hanging signs in New York subway stations to tell people where they can board the train to make the most efficient transfers.

[David Weinberg]

The project is not at all affiliated with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, but the signs look just like MTA signs. Black with white Helvetica lettering. They say things like board here for best transfer to the 4, 5 and 6 trains or board here for best transfer to F and M trains.

[Roman Mars]

It's the kind of knowledge that you build up over time as a regular subway rider, and this guerrilla sign maker is offering it to everyone.

[David Weinberg]

And though some have applauded the signs, not all New Yorkers are pleased.

[Roman Mars]

These are secrets, some say, that people should have to earn. They will unbalance the cars, they say. Leave signage to the experts.

[David Weinberg]

The mta, for their part, is taking down the signs as fast as they go up. MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told us in an email that, quote, posting of the signs is considered an act of vandalism.

[Roman Mars]

Point being, if you decide to undertake an act of guerrilla public service, just know it may not be received as such. That episode Guerrilla Public Service first aired in 2014. This episode was remixed by Martin Gonzalez and scored by Swan Rial. Kathy Tu is our executive producer, Kurt Kolstead is the digital director. Delaney hall is the senior editor. Taylor Shedrick is our intern. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Jason De Leon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Lay Bosh Madonn, Joe Rosenberg, Gabriella Gladney, Kelly Prime, Jacob Maldonado Medina, Nina Patak and me, Roman Mars. The 99% invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of The Stitcher and SiriusXM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pantdora Building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California, home of the Oakland Roots Soccer Club, of which I'm a proud community owner. Other teams may come and go, but the Roots are Oakland first, always. You can find us on all the usual social media sites, as well as our own Discord server, where we are dropping our hot takes about Megalopolis and how the movie relates to the power broker. It's good stuff. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of [e-mail].

[Roy Behrens]

Do.

[Roman Mars]

You ever watch TV and think, wow, I'm really good at this? You're right. With rewards on sling, watching 30 minutes of TV daily gives you chances to win up to $10,000 in cash and other monthly prizes. Sign up for Sling or Stream for free with Sling Free Stream to get rewarded for watching TV. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn more and get started. No purchase necessary for it. We're prohibited by law. Visit sling.com for more details. Hello beautiful nerds, It's Roman here. If you're loving 99% invisible and want to hear new episodes ad free and get access to exclusive bonus content like AMAs with me and producers on staff. Subscribe to Siri XM Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today.