7 ms·

Pictures of Sao Paolo before and after banning billboards leads me to support this idea. Some examples (with a couple bonus pictures of London removing billboa

• buboard 7y ago
  Yeah sure if you remove ugly structures from anything it looks better. (BTW empty billboards look ugly). You can settle for "good looking advertising", which a lot of cities do anyway. I dont think the calls for ban are solely for aesthetic reasons
  • kick 7y ago
    All advertising is bad-looking. It's intentionally created to draw your attention without your consent, and distracts from anything actually of interest.
    • buboard 7y ago
      some advertising is ugly. most of it is intentionally designed to create a positive emotional response, in many cases including art. Think different.
      • normalnorm 7y ago
        All of it is designed hijack your attention against your own interests. What you call "positive emotional response" is only positive from the point of view of the advertiser. From the point of view of the victims, it as intrusion on their thoughts of attention, and almost always an attempt to implant a desire into their mind. Ads are art to the same degree that cannibalism is gastronomy.
        • buboard 7y ago
          most apple users here would disagree plus i m not sure if you re aware how extreme your position is Most of our beautiful classical art was advertisements for the Church most graffiti is uglier than ads
          • mirimir 7y ago
            > Most of our beautiful classical art was advertisements for the Church I guess that's why I hate so much of it. Also the bloody hymns that are popular this season. Especially the castrati voices.
            • buboard 7y ago
              sorry to shock you, but almost every western cultural artifact you listen or watch is derivative of that art. so i guess u hate music too
              • mirimir 7y ago
                I hate lots of music, sure. My taste runs toward punk, black metal, acid house, and trance.
          • normalnorm 7y ago
            > most apple users here would disagree > plus i m not sure if you re aware how extreme your position is Wait, aren't you the person who just wrote "think different"? I'm confused. > Most of our beautiful classical art was advertisements for the Church Sure, and Jesus was a Marxist, or something... If you try to force XXI century concepts into XIV century realities you can arrive at silly over-simplified conclusions such as the one above. > most graffiti is uglier than ads This is your opinion. Graffitis are not trying to manipulate me.
            • ericmay 7y ago
              Eh, I think graffiti is or can be used to send a message or bring to light an issue. So in that way it is trying to manipulate you. That being said I don’t disagree with the rest of your post.
    • WalterBright 7y ago
      > All advertising is bad-looking. The Eiffel Tower was built as basically an advertisement for Eiffel's company. The Rainier R is also became an icon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Brewing_Company#/media/File:Rainier_Brewery_with_the_R_restored_03.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Brewing_Company#/media...
      • glandium 7y ago
        The Eiffel Tower was built as a monument for the World Fair of Paris in 1889. It was supposed to be dismantled 20 years later, and what saved it is that it had been used for telecommunications. Seeing it as an ad for Eiffel's company is kind of a stretch.
        • WalterBright 7y ago
          > Seeing it as an ad for Eiffel's company is kind of a stretch. Eiffel paid a huge chunk of the cost of it, and had his name put on it. It's no different from businesses funding a sports stadium in exchange for it being named after the business. It's awesome advertising. I've often wondered why Microsoft didn't fund NASA probe missions in exchange for writing "Microsoft" on the side of the rocket or other such considerations. It'd be a win for all concerned.
  • JohnFen 7y ago
    Personally, I resent it when I see ads everywhere I look, even if they're "good looking". Advertising is inherently invasive.
    • buboard 7y ago
      if someone puts ads "everywhere you look" then you shouldn't be there in the first place. I can't think of many places that are saturated with advertising and also worth looking at. The internet is a unique in being so saturated because advertising is so cheap.
      • JohnFen 7y ago
        > if someone puts ads "everywhere you look" then you shouldn't be there in the first place Really? So I shouldn't be in most public spaces? I reject that notion. The counter to my statement that I would agree with is "that's just one of the irritations you have to put up with in our society".
        • buboard 7y ago
          you should complain to your mayor if they do of course. If however most residents are ok with them, then yeah , i guess other people are the irritation you have to put up with
          • ericmay 7y ago
            I think most residents are ok with them, but it’s because they don’t have a clear choice, haven’t stopped to think about it, and/or “that’s just how things have always been”.
            • buboard 7y ago
              you can say that about anything
          • JohnFen 7y ago
• bobthepanda 7y ago
  The Sao Paolo banning of billboards I can get behind. The banning of awnings for the businesses actually behind them, not so much.
  • learnstats2 7y ago
    City advertising invites a lobby group with the goal of removing objects obstructing views of advertising - which has an impact particularly on urban trees and wildlife. It also takes over public space - the fountain at Piccadilly Circus has been used as a convenient meeting point, but in recent years the whole area has been inaccessible in the winter due to extra advertising hoarding.
    • deogeo 7y ago
      Yep - they cut down some trees in my vicinity to make room for billboards.
• echelon 7y ago
  Am I alone in thinking that the "after" pictures look worse? Everything looks so plain and boring. And I say this as someone that abhors advertising.
  • JohnFen 7y ago
    I think the "after" images look much better, with the exception of those empty sign frames.
  • paxys 7y ago
    That is because the "after" pictures in the article were taken immediately after all the billboards were removed. They will be (and mostly are already) replaced with paintings, murals etc., better ads, or just better use of the space in general. The options aren't just ads or a bland city.
    • echelon 7y ago
      Then that is beautiful. I'd like to see those pictures, and the article should be updated to reflect that.
      • cm2012 7y ago
        Those pictures don't exist since that didn't happen
    • manigandham 7y ago
      That's a lot of area to cover with art and it's unlikely it would really fill up most of the space. Also art itself is subjective and people aren't going to like graffiti everywhere either. Things will look more plain, that's just how it is.
• whatever1 7y ago
  So it now looks better in a photo, but in the meantime lots of advertising firms and possibly local professionals that were working in installation lost (part of) theirs jobs. Good for us tourists that we need the lowest possible cost of services.
  • andrepd 7y ago
    Law enforcement will put drug traffickers out of business, and dealers out of a job. Banning coal mining will put miners out of a job. Jobs are not an end in itself, if their value to society is negative. It does not just "look better in a photo". People are allowed to walk on their daily lives without being bombarded by flashing, highly targeted, hyper-optimised psychological manipulation. Without adverts that make them feel bad, inferior, missing out, all so they buy whatever shit the man with the money is peddling. They are allowed to decorate their buildings and public spaces with aesthetically pleasing art and decoration. It's a major improvement in quality of life.
  • CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > So it now looks better in a photo, but in the meantime lots of advertising firms and possibly local professionals that were working in installation lost (part of) theirs jobs. I'm fine with that. Most jobs in advertising produce little to no social utility, and the labor spend doing them should be redirected into more socially beneficial directions. Less ad targeting and construction of ever more garish billboards, more teaching and medical care, etc.
• dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  I can't be the only one that finds the before images more attractive. The before pictures look like a vibrant and alive city where things are happening and commerce is being done. The after pictures look dull and dead.
  • pmoriarty 7y ago
    "The before pictures look like a vibrant and alive city where things are happening and commerce is being done." That's what you get when you have competent, professional painters, typographers, photographers and designers deliberately trying to make their work exciting and attractive. Without the ads, all you see is drab, flatly painted buildings, which are not nearly as exciting. The feeling of excitement and aliveness does not require advertising, however. Some towns and neighborhoods revitalized their run down buildings by hiring artists to come and paint murals (which, to my eye look far better than virtually any ad), or commissioning other artwork (such as sculptures). But even if that's not done, I'd personally much rather see flatly-painted buildings than advertising that's trying to manipulate me.
    • Mirioron 7y ago
      >But even if that's not done, I'd personally much rather see flatly-painted buildings than advertising that's trying to manipulate me. You would feel right at home around a neighborhood of commie blocks. Those look fine too if they were painted well and had decent art on them, but that doesn't happen. Nobody wants to pay for that.
  • cocochanel 7y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted for such a subjective comment. I also genuinely prefer the before images.
  • ken 7y ago
    The covering of every surface with advertising is not indicative of more 'commerce being done'. People are still buying and selling even when there isn't a giant garish billboard 30 feet over their heads. And plenty of advertising-covered neighborhoods are just dead. You're used to a secondary attribute, so you associate it with the actual thing. It's like growing up with muscle cars, and associating loud noise with a powerful engine. Well, we've also got electric cars. Peace and quiet doesn't mean a slow car.
• grzte 7y ago
  Boy, nothing says "poor country" like walls covered with coloured signs with a thousand cramped letters each.
• boring_twenties 7y ago
  We now have illuminated billboards along the freeway, with bright colors and a new ad every few seconds. What could possibly go wrong?
• daveguy 7y ago
  So much better without advertisements. That would be ideal.
  • daveguy 7y ago
    But how do you get your product out without advertising? Money money money. Gotta have that advertising to have that money.
    • ken 7y ago
      99% of the advertising I see is for products and services which are already household names. Advertising is not some democratizer which enables the little guy to pay a few bucks and stand on equal footing with the big guy. It's yet another tool which the big players can use to stay big players, and keep new entrants out of the game.
      • Mirioron 7y ago
        >99% of the advertising I see is for products and services which are already household names. You know about them, but millions of people don't. Every day people learn new things that they never paid attention to before.
• pupdogg 7y ago
  I believe that the overhead power lines add more noise to the city scape than the billboards.
• Smithalicious 7y ago
  This may be an unpopular opnion but I actually really like billboards. I'd prefer having them around even if they advertised for nonexistent companies.
  • madhadron 7y ago
    What about having public artwork that isn't commercial instead?