Elise Hu

Thanks for listening.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hu.

The signs really are everywhere.

If we stop to appreciate the wonder of the world, there are so many moments of accidental brilliance that can be experienced.

That's designer and professor Kate Canales.

In her talk, she shares a unique obsession with the handmade signs posted all around us.

The subtle, helpful, and oftentimes hysterical extra instructions humans add to point-of-sale machines, doors, and conspicuously in bathrooms.

She took to the TED stage to share a selection of the hundreds of photos of quirky signs she's collected over the years and offers a simple but important message.

This talk is highly visual, but we wanted to make sure we could share it with our podcast listeners as well.

So we reached out to Kate and asked if she would describe the images for you, which we're including here alongside portions of her talk.

That's all coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the day.

That was Kate Kanellis at TED Next 2025.

And that's it for today.

TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.

This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sangmarnivong.

Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.

I'm Elise Hu.

I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.