Perhaps the biggest trend in post-COVID signage is…that there really isn’t any. As I wrote early and often throughout last year, COVID-related signage bloomed like madness in the spring and continued through the summer. In our forecasts of 2021, my prediction had been that there would be a continued demand for some kind of pandemic or post-pandemic signage, as businesses, municipalities, and others need to communicate salient policies regarding mask-wearing, vaccination and/or testing requirements, and so forth. But I had completely underestimated the extent to which everyone would be eager to return to “normal” and remove all signs (in several senses of the word) that there had ever been a pandemic.

It was confusing at first. In May, when places started opening up in earnest, mask-wearing policies were inconsistent, and even in the same shopping plaza, different stores had different policies (or perhaps “attitudes” is the better term). In Home Depot, not a mask was to be seen, while across the parking lot in Barnes & Noble, everyone was still wearing masks—yet there was no signage identifying what a particular store’s attitude was.

And floor graphics, which had taken off during the pandemic, were taken off once it was over. (“We haven’t seen social distancing signage in ages,” said Eric Lazar, Partner and Lead Evangelist for Speedpro Chicago Loop. “We had a significant run of floor decals last June/July 2020 and again in the late in Winter 2021….but since then, dead.”) And you may have noticed that directional graphics in supermarket aisles—which, to be honest, was never particularly effective—vanished.