Believe it or not, an architectural review board for Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is frightened by the signage design and turning its collective nose up an an extravagant and colorful 3D exterior signage and environmental graphic design for the entrance to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum.

Image shown is from Atlantic City “Ripley’s” Museum

We are completely in favor of local governments determining what is right for their cities, as we have demonstrated in posts on this blog:

•  Signage Quick Hits: Wayfinding and Architectural Signage for Public Spaces,
•  Wayfinding Signage at Navy Pier Gets D- Grade,
• Signage Quick Hits: Architectural Signage In The News, and finally,
• Sign Judgments: Huge Exterior Digital Signage for Wilshire Grand Hotel Causes Controversy

We also recognize that the city of Baltimore is an upswing (finally) due to renovations and updates to the harbor area and the skyrocketing salaries and explosion of government hiring and government-service firm hiring, which has a bleed over effect on tourism and home ownership around Baltimore. However, we feel the architectural review board should consider other stories involving signage stand-offs to be sure they aren’t letting personal taste stand in the way of real economic prosperity.

For more on this story, reported by Lorraine Mirabella, of  The Baltimore Sun, and to see a great rendering of the signage, click here.

While we’re at it, we cannot help but notice a resemblance to a fantastic 3form dragon design we wrote about a few months ago. Click here to see more about this magnificent dragon.