Labels for Emily's Stove

My most successful design project

Everyone was always turning on the wrong element on Emily's stove. One time I even turned it on thinking "I finally got it" only to return a few minutes later to find the kettle cold and a red-hot element heating the kitchen.

The knobs were labelled "FRONT" and "BACK":

The labelling was confusing people. I wondered if it was because the rear of the stove is actually forward for the person:

Some stoves come with diagrams like this:

This is much better, but I still watch people mistakenly turn on the wrong element on stoves with labels like these, especially when it isn't their own stove. I think it's because your brain has to convert the two-dimensional drawing into 3D.

I made these drawings in perspective and no one ever turned on the wrong element again on Emily's old stove.

Thanks for reading about my stove labels. If you have a design project you'd like to work on together, email me at lyndon@lyndonfroese.com.