As of January 1st 2007, megalopolis São Paulo became the world’s first city to completely ban outdoor advertising. Under the city’s “Lei Cidade Limpa” or Clean City Law, flashing neon signage, billboards and electronic panels are all prohibited. Strict guidelines even regulate the size of permissible signage for storefronts. In a short time, the city world-renowned for its gang violence became known for its kibosh on visual pollution in the public space. Tony de Marco’s Flickr set, São Paulo No Logo, documents the now somewhat sinister sights of the advert free city.
This poses an interesting question: If a city is advert free and devoid of any type of commercial clutter, is it still distinguishable? To explore this concept further, Austrian artist Gregor Graf, takes medium format photos of highly recognizable locales, and then removes the commercial signage, street signs, people and traffic. The cities become unidentifiable, and rather eerie.
The shots featured in this post are of prominent streets in London.
Via: Creative Review
Share
That’s brilliant. Have you seen the Carlsberg advert which features the town with all the ads removed from the billboards?
I didn’t recognise these streets to start with. Amazing what effect the colour and shape of logos have on your brain’s memory.