[I wrote this in June 2006 but never got around to publishing it anywhere. It's not terribly interesting, but having gone to the trouble of writing it, I feel it ought to live somewhere other than my laptop.]

A while back I noticed a real-world design pattern which I'm fairly certain has no online equivalent. I began to see it, or the potential for it, everywhere I looked.

My best description of the pattern would be: given a binary pair of objects, only one of the pair need be labeled. The value of the other can be deduced by process of elimination.

A quick example of this would be the hot and cold taps on a sink: if one of them is marked as the hot tap, the other must be the cold tap. It's not necessary to label both taps for a person to successfully use the sink.

# Informing on a budget

This basic concept dawned on me when I got up to go to the loo at a cheap Vietnamese restaurant. The staff pointed me towards an alcove containing two doors. I glanced at the first door, saw it was marked "Women's", and started moving towards the second door, which I presumed was the Men's. As I reached it I noticed this second door had no "Men's" sign. It was blank. Apparently it didn't need any kind of marking for people to know what was behind it; it only required simple deduction.

Since I immediately had a little time to ponder things, I put the old noggin to work on why the restaurant might have labeled only one of its two bathroom doors. I concluded it was a question of cost. Why should a low-budget restaurant pay for two toilet signs when it only takes a moment of the patron's time to work out which door is the right one for them?

# Manufacturing

That evening, as I got ready for bed, I noticed that my contact lens case only had one of its two lids marked with a letter. The right lid had a big 'R' for 'RIGHT' on it, while the left lid was smooth and blank.

I presume that this allows the manufacturer to reduce tooling costs somehow, perhaps when it comes to the international market. The right lid can be labelled in a variety of languages, while the left lid remains generically and affordably blank.

# When the idea breaks down

I mentioned to Chris Wetherell what I'd observed and he pointed out its weak point; namely that when the objects become physically separated it's left to people to remember which is the marked and which is the unmarked object.

To illustrate this flaw, think about a salt pot and a pepper pot on a dinner table. One pot is labeled 'S' and contains salt. The other pot is blank and contains pepper. Both pots are opaque so you can't see their contents.

Placed together at the start of the meal it would be easy to say which pot contained salt and which contained pepper. But as the meal progresses and the two pots are separated and passed around the table, a person who picks up the unmarked pot might start to wonder which one they have in their hand. Was it the salt that was unmarked? Or the pepper?

So Chris is right -- any time it takes more than a flick of the eyes to confirm which of the two objects you're dealing with, the whole idea seems to fall apart.

# Extending this beyond a single pair of objects

I also talked to Paul Nixon, and together we realised that this selective labeling isn't limited to things that come in pairs, but extends to things which come in lots of pairs all joined together, like the measurement marks on a ruler.

By only labeling major points along a ruler's length, manufacturers save money and reduce visual clutter. Yet we're more than capable, albeit after a pause, of finding the value of any point on the scale.

And you know, watch and clock manufacturers do exactly the same thing: label a few points, save some money, keep the interface clean, and let the human mind fill in the blanks.

# This idea is everywhere in the real world, so why don't we see this on the internet?

Since noticing this I've looked everywhere for examples of it on the internet, and I can't say I've found any. Why is that? Well, as a quick guess I'd say:

(1) It's not really any cheaper to produce a blank button than to produce one which has some helpful text on it.

(2) Very few things on the internet always come in pairs, and have consistent labels across sites. Without consistency of function and name (hot tap, cold tap) it becomes very hard to use this idea with any success.

(3) Bugs! If we chose not to label one of a pair of buttons people would just presume there was a bug in our code. On the whole the internet's so rubbish that we couldn't blame people for thinking we'd just made a mistake.

(4) As for the joined pairs scenario, the internet's not big on ruler- or dial-type scales for controls. (Though I guess that's slowly changing.)

# This reminds me...

This whole thing reminds me of a Jimmy Carr joke:

"I was talking to my Nan about Ant & Dec. She said she didn't know which one Ant was. I said 'Do you know which one Dec is?' She said 'Yep.'"

I'll eventually make proper labels for these, but Mr. Sharpie works for now. The top-left key is "Fn" (function). Below that is "AD" (address/data).

The 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion followed the principle of using what you have to hand - from discarded University lab furniture and items from the museum stores, to instruments from local hackerspace Labitat and Rüdiger Trojok's homelab in Germany, and cheap purchases from IKEA, Amazon, and local stores. Luggage labels in the exhibition reveal these diverse origins. Photograph to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch. Originally uploaded to MaltheBorch's flickr stream.

This is a template to make Quilt Labels on Spoonflower.

This file will give you three labels 4" tall x 6" wide with seam allowances. Finished size 3.5" x 5.5"

It is ideal if you want to order one yard of fabric with three different designs. You will get 63 labels from this size, 21 of each design.

--

When saving this file make sure to download the original file that is (900 x 1800)

Spoonflower Label Tutorial #1

Spoonflower Label Tutorial #2

This is my first beer label design for my homebrew.

www.misselhornmedia.com

Bart Drost, Gerrie Starreveld en Ernie Bossmann

British Railways 1980s Carriage label

BR21717/41

WR5 London Paddington to Weston-super-Mare

I fund my Flickr membership, scanner and software myself. So, if you like my pictures please consider buying me a coffee! www.buymeacoffee.com/seanl

© Sean Lancastle, all rights reserved. Please do not share or post elsewhere without permission.

ACCESO AL RECORRIDO DETALLADO: rjaiz008

Otras etiquetas de recorridos: www.juanesjavier.net - javier juanes - monte - montaña - montañismo - senderismo - senda - ruta - recorrido - bidea - track - waypoint - gailura - sierra - mendilerroa - bosque - basoa - forest - bois - haya - hayedo - mendia - montagne - mountain - ibilbidea - pagoa - mjaiz000 - jaizkibel - europa - euskal herria - euskalherria - hegoalde - españa - espagne - spain - espainiar estatua - pais vasco - pais - vasco - cav - comunidad autonoma vasca - gipuzkoa - guipuzcoa - donostialdea - pasaia - pasajes - pasai - antxo - ancho - sanpedro - san pedro - donibane - san juan - pasai donibane - bidasoaldea - hondarribia - fuenterrabia - rjaiz008 - GR-121 - cvc - parador - guadalupe - gruta - balma - erosion - veta - celda poligonal - boxwork - colores - arenisca - pseudokarst - paramoudra - esfera - labetxu - valle - morkotz - acantilado - turroia - cala - erentzin - refugio - inaxio - prudencio san sebastian - bioznar - punta - laondo - poza - marla - Bioznar - Erentzin - Labetxu

Thank you, Jacqueline! I have enjoyed stamping on the wine labels you've sent me.

Luggage label from the glory days of travel.

TUTORIAL: abduzeedo.com/create-zee-vintage-label-illustrator

Bart Drost, Gerrie Starreveld en Ernie Bossmann

labelling...

blogged: blueberry-park.blogspot.com/2012/02/so-its-still-half-ter...

Wychbury are 'not that pristine', we can make ruder gestures than Molly Ringwald and don't get on that well with keeping our whites white! Our labels are now getting the tea stained treatment too, the paper texture and cotton thread take on the colour nicely and a quick finish in the oven gives the edges a nice worn look.

Wychbury's brand, created by hand.

Whether you eschew labels or embrace them, it's time to turn them upside down. Watch this week's video and learn how to stitch clothing labels into fun fashion bracelets. youtu.be/RoT15SWfO4A

I'd love for you to subscribe to my YouTube channel. A new video is released every week!

Here is Mr. Label Whore wearing the aforementioned Hugo Boss jacket. I must say, it is really warm though.

Dymo label making machines, on the left early 1970s, made in Belgium, and on the right a new one bought in 2021.

The old machine uses a narrower tape, although that size is still available.

Guarantee red label isolated over a white background. This is a 3D rendered picture.

Buy matchbox label book & prints at Matchbloc.com

Fundación Bancaja presenta la exposición Pepe Gimeno. Diálogos entre arte y diseño, enmarcada en el programa oficial de World Design Capital Valencia 2022. bit.ly/3PyMnpY

British Railways 1980s Carriage label

BR21717/41

TP101 Liverpool to Sheffield

I fund my Flickr membership, scanner and software myself. So, if you like my pictures please consider buying me a coffee! www.buymeacoffee.com/seanl

© Sean Lancastle, all rights reserved. Please do not share or post elsewhere without permission.

label to one of my jackets. I adore it.

Pullip Seila

blogged here clarabellacraft.blogspot.com/2011/07/end-of-term.html

Two Great Western Railway wagon labels, Chipping Sodbury to Ticehurst Road {now Stonegate} dated September and October 1932.

étiquette confiture à imprimer gratuitement sur

dans-mon-bocal.over-blog.com/

Label it with style. Mooo name labels are the cutest way to identify your belongings. Our huge range of name label designs and colours means you no longer have to be stuck with the same old colours and boring icons for your name stickers / school stickers. And did we mention our kids labels are super practical too...

All our vinyl name labels / school labels have rounded corners to help prevent peeling and will adhere to any smooth, hard, clean surface. Perfect for lunch boxes, drink bottles and pretty much anything else you can think of!!! Our name labels / school labels are waterproof, dishwasher resistant and microwave safe.

Since I started making my own household products, I had to learn to remove labels from recycled containers. Here is what I learned : paper labels are glued onto the containers with either oil or water based glue.

Water based are easy -just soak it in the water and it comes off quite easily -sometimes with some rubbing.

Oil based ones are a bit trickier -you will have to use cloth with some oil on it and rub it for 5 to 10 minutes(better do something fun while doing it -can be boring). Of course, you could soak them in oil, but that requires lots of oil...

The third kind is paint on the container, like a laundry bottles or cleaner bottles is the worst, because you have to either sand it off(I didn't do it, because it can leave small scratches, that would gather dirt) or use nasty thing like acetone. I won't do that type much, but I needed bottles for laundry soap, so I did those.

There is one more kind of labels -they come out very easily just by carefully pealing them off -not sure, if their glue is water or oil based, but I like those the most-so try that first and see -it might just come off without any fuss.

Label from a vintage candy stripe red and white skirt

Labeling.

Twelve Days of Christmas

Day 6: Matthias Merges

Restaurant at Meadowood

St. Helena, California

(December 14, 2012)

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