A DESIGNER has called on Oxford City Council to improve its “aggressive and hectoring” car park signs.

Bampton man Mark McArthur-Christie was so confused by a sign about “combination tariffs” at Oxpens car park, he launched the Design for Clarity campaign, which will highlight examples of poor language on public signs.

The campaign — run by Mr McArthur-Christie’s design agency — launched on Tuesday when he presented the council with an alternative sign to replace 10 separate signs at its Worcester Street car park.

The newly-designed four feet-wide sign was dropped off at the Town Hall with a letter from Mr McArthur-Christie, 42, offering to give the council the design for free.

He said: “The council’s car park signs could be a lot better.

“They are confusing, the tone of them is quite aggressive and they are a bit hectoring.

“Oxford is a fantastic city. We have tourists coming here from all over the world and this is the first impression they get of our city.

“We just want to make it better. We want to show it doesn’t have to be expensive, there doesn’t have to be a big fuss — there just needs to be a little bit of thinking.”

Mr McArthur-Christie first noticed the sign in Oxpens last year. He was so baffled by the its message he took a photograph of it and asked colleagues if they could work out the instruction.

When none of them could, the team visited half a dozen council-owned car parks and quizzed customers, who said they were frustrated by the range of different instructions.

In January, they began redesigning the sign for Worcester Street car park.

Nick Fry, creative director at Freeman Christie, said there were currently too many signs at the car park and because the writing on a main sign was white on a dark blue background it was difficult to read.

He said: “A predominance of ‘No’ and ‘Warning’ and ‘Fine’ and ‘Penalty’ seem to litter Oxford’s car parking signs. We have taken away the verbosity and the abrasiveness of the language.

“We’ve made the signs easier to understand too — we needed to.”

Deborah Liddiard, 48, who was using the Worcester Street car park, said: “The new sign is a lot better. It is clearer and a lot more concise. The council sign is too dark.”

The city council runs 12 car parks and in February raised charges by an average of 15 per cent.

A city council spokesman said parking manager Andrew Barnes had received a letter from the designers and added: “Following a recent review of the charges we have changed the information on the tariff boards.

“There are no immediate plans to change the signage.

“However, the ideas presented offer an interesting alternative to the current wording and we will take these into consideration when we next review the notices."

To find out more about the campaign visit designforclarity.com ghamilton@oxfordmail.co.uk