In the photo above you will see one of the very first signs you will be welcomed by, as you land in Rome airport. A shabby A4 paper, straight out of some laser printer, with text poorly written both in Italian and in English, set in Comic Sans. It is a sign meant to provide straight-forward information about the proper procedure when going through passport control and it barely manages to do that.
But its design feature tells more than that: nevermind the comical suggestion to wait on the yellow line, which is of course perpendicular to the queue; above all this poorly designed sign tells the visitors that when designing for public spaces in Rome anything goes and nobody cares about proportions, readability and beauty. 
The next time I land in my hometown, I will bring this revised version and put it there (or get arrested while trying…)
Here it is in pdf: PASSPORT-CONTROL-ROME-outline
Note: the pictogram in the revised layout comes from a set of 50 passenger/pedestrian symbols developed by AIGA, and it is available for all to use, free of charge. Signs are available in EPS and GIF formats at: http://www.aiga.org/symbol-signs/
