MAGAZINES & PRESS - COMPLETED STREET PROJECTS - PUBLIC AD CAMPAIGN BLOG

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Inflatable Supergraphics: Part of McDonalds Ad Blitz for Upscale Coffee Drinks

VIA Ban Billboard Blight
The crew was out in the middle of the night on Overland Ave. in West L.A., installing this five-story ”inflatable” supergraphic sign that’s part of a $100 milllion-plus advertising campaign signaling McDonalds’ foray into the upscale coffee market dominated by Starbucks and a handful of other chains.

The building previously sported a supergraphic ad for designer jeans, which wasn’t removed, but covered up by the faux brick of the McCafe sign. Last year, the company that installed the ads, World Wide Rush, got an injunction from a U.S. District Court Judge barring the city from enforcing its ban on supergraphic ads at the location.

According to an advertising industry publication, McDonalds spent $825 million last year on advertising on TV, radio, the internet and billboards and other outdoor advertising venues. To tell McDonalds (for whatever its worth) what you think of their marketing campaign, click here.

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Saturday, May 16, 2009

El Capitan Theater: More Defacement of Historic Hollywood Buildings by Supergraphic Signs

VIA Ban Billboard Blight

The El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Blvd. opened in 1926, and was the site of many star-studded events, including the world premiere of “Citizen Kane” in 1941. It later fell on hard times, but in the late Eighties the Walt Disney Co. and Pacific Theaters teamed up to do a complete restoration, and it has since been the venue for premieres of Disney feature films.

el-capitan-2Before The Supergraphic

The theater, built by the same real estate developer who built the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Chinese Theater, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And like the hotel, also a registered historic landmark, the building has been draped with a huge supergraphic sign that obscures much of its architecture.

The owners of the hotel, just down the street from the theater, and the sign company, In Plain Sight Media, recently sued the city seeking the right to keep the unpermitted supergraphic sign in place. More on Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

The owners of the El Capitan theater donated a “conservation easement” to the Los Angeles Conservancy, which is essentially an agreement not to make any exterior modifications to the building that don’t meet historic preservation standards. This easement is considered a charitable donation, and is typically used by owners of historic properties to claim significant tax deductions.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Augor on Painting Illegal Billboards in LA



Too Tall Jahmal and Augor sound off about graffiti's usage of public space and particularly in relation to illegal billboard signage in LA. Jahmal says "The billbaords in my mind, inspired graffiti...it's only natural for a kid to go, 'Hey, I wanna logo too'". And the result is the liberation of these private billboards, brand locations and logo placeholders, by the very graffiti that they inspired. Fantastic.

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Saturday, May 9, 2009

Report From The Billboard Jungle in Los Angeles ::: illegalsigns

If you don't enjoy watching news programming in your free time, consider watching this on company time Monday morning.

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

What Invites, and What Alienates Us in Our Shared Public Spaces

The following quote comes from Ban Billboard Blight's response to "a response by Stuart Magruder to a March 26 article in the L.A. Times titled 'L.A.’s Great Signage Debate' by architectural critic Christopher Hawthorne." Amazing. It also happens to be an eloquent summary of the difference between place signage and advertising, sometimes referred to as first party signage and third party signage.
"The more insidious mistake that Mr. Hawthorne makes is his assessment of what is and what is not advertising. He rolls into one category the “thrillingly tall billboards…on the Sunset Strip” with the Hollywood sign, the LAX sign, the address numbers on the Caltrans building, and several others. Unfortunately, only the fist example - the billboards on Sunset Strip - is advertising; the rest are place signs, not advertising. The difference between billboards and place signs is crucial. The first and most obvious difference: place signs are about the place they adorn. They refer to themselves or to the building that they are on. The best ones, such as the Hollywood sign (which started its life as a billboard for “Hollywoodland” but now designates the place both physically and culturally), are landmarks, helping us get around the city and understand where we are. Billboard advertising is just the opposite. It is placeless; it disorients. There is no connection to what is advertised and where the billboard is located. Billboards make us lose our way in the city as the same product is advertised all over."
Advocates of advertising's removal from public space do not wish for an austere environment, free from anything but boring brick walls and sheer facades. In fact the opposite is often true. It is the selfish nature of advertising's use of public space that is at the heart of our complaint. Instead we advocate the removal of the selfish with replacement by the personal, individual, and inherently altruistic acts of peoples invested in their space for reasons other than profit. Personal interaction with public space often leads to moments of grand visual elegance, teeming with life affirming qualities that stand out against the background of the city. Unlike a billboard whose advertising content we shrink away from, public use of public space is revelatory and engrossing.

The above image by WK Interact once created a physical place in the city that truly inspired me. It was replaced some years after its creation by an advertisement and the entire corner lost it's identity.

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Monday, January 1, 2007

Light Criticism-GRL

The graffiti research lab made this project happen and we should all take note. Simple words sometimes are the best words.

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    WORTH READING

    Eduardo Moises Penalver & Sonia Kaytal
    Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership

    Barbara Ehrenreich
    Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy

    Lewis Hyde
    The Gift, Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

    Geoffrey Miller
    Spent: Sex, Evolution, & Consumer Behavior

    Sharon Zukin
    The Cultures of Cities

    Miriam Greenberg
    Branding New York

    Naomi Klein
    No Logo

    Kalle Lasn
    Culture Jam

    Stuart Ewen
    Captains of Consciousness

    Stuart Ewen
    All Consuming Images

    Stuart & Elizabeth Ewen
    Channels of Desire

    Jeff Ferrell
    Crimes of Style

    Jeff Ferrell
    Tearing Down the Streets

    John Berger
    Ways of Seeing

    Joe Austin
    Taking the Train

    Rosalyn Deutsche
    Evictions art + spatial politics

    Jane Jacobs
    Death+Life of American Cities