Problem-agitate-solve

The pattern

This still is filed under Problem-agitate-solve.

Define

Name the problem, make the cost of leaving it felt, then present the way out as relief.

Mechanism

Tension then release. The offer is not an interruption. It is the only door once the cost of staying is clear.

Verdict

The problem is known but not yet urgent

Why it works

The poster never explains stress; the lettering does it. SQUARE CORNERS is bent around a sharp black right angle where a gremlin jams his crowbar into the inside corner, while ROUND CORNERS follows a smooth curve the gremlin gives up on and runs from. The rhyming pair "and Gremlins Play" and "they Stay Away" turns a design rule into a jingle a shipyard worker can repeat, and "WHY HELP GREMLINS?" makes a square corner a favour to the thing that breaks ships.

The big idea

Square corners give trouble a place to start and round corners give it none, shown as a gremlin prying at one and running from the other.

The offer

An ask, not a product: design and build with round corners instead of square ones.

The proof

Issued by the Navy Department, Bureau of Ships, May 1, 1944.

Lines from the ad

WHY HELP GREMLINS?

SQUARE CORNERS and Gremlins Play

ROUND CORNERS - they Stay Away

Steal this when

Use this when a technical rule has to stick with people on the shop floor, and the right and wrong versions can be drawn side by side.

The emotion

Written to Amusement. It makes the Say move.

The joke is the rule: a gremlin jams his crowbar into a square corner and runs from a round one, and the rhyme of 'Play' and 'Stay Away' makes it easy to repeat.