Tough economic times call for inventive new ways to use the city, and outdoor advertising is never one to shy away from trying new things, even if they are illegal. Here’s one new form of visual intrusion trying to make its illegal mark on our city.
How do you figure out how many illegal billboards are operating in your city? You go out and count them. LA city residents are taking to the streets and taking inventory of the illegal signage choking their city. It’s a bold move for a community trying to aid their city against the onslaught of legal brouhaha being cooked up by the billboard industry.
With the recent drop of Ji Lee’s book, “Talk Back: The Bubble Project” I stumbled upon the manifesto describing his entire project. Its well worth as it is a very concise argument for open participation in our public discourse. Plus Mr. Lee has pulled off the only public advertising campaign I have ever condoned!
There’s nothing new about creating different and more interactive advertising content to catch the fleeting attentions of the average viewer. What is new is are the recent reworkings of time tested two dimensional advertising locations in NYC. It seems advertisers are realizing that it’s the quality of the connection that entices the audience, not necessarily the novelty of completely new venues and forms.
Sometimes a street work will remind you of why public interaction with public space is absolutely necessary creating dialogue and participation where before there was a cleanliness devoid of persona. Other times you find a single piece which does this same thing while covering advertising and fighting the obstacles which hinder our ability to carry out such interactions, and its so sweet.
Public Ad Campaign’s Recent Five