Amusing,
how signs - in their conventional design - melt into the surroundings
and become invisible. It takes some effort to spot those. Not unlike the
high-vis vest.
And then high-vis clothing pulled off its greatest trick: it
disappeared. Signifying no particular profession, it conveys very little
information about its wearer beyond “I am working”. Photographers and
activists swear by the high-vis vest as a way of avoiding the attention
of the police. And criminals don’t just wear them after they’ve been
caught: scrap-metal thieves routinely wear the vests to pose as workmen,
and the robbers in the 2006 Securitas depot robbery, the biggest cash
heist in British history, wore high-vis jackets. It has sunk into the
visual background noise of our culture – high-visibility gear is a
modern invisibility cloak. (from Icon, October, 2010)
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