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Help strip Times Square of its ads
Posted by Eliza Williams, 2 February 2011, 16:33 Permalink Comments (19)
New York's Times Square is known around the world for its intense, neon-lit advertising billboards and signs. But how would it look with all the ads removed? A new website presented by Morgan Spurlock, whose documentary investigating product placement in films premiered at the Sundance film festival last week, gives you the chance to help find out.
Designed by US agency The Barbarian Group, the website was inspired by the billboard advertising ban in São Paulo (which we covered in CR here). Barbarian took a 360 degree photo of Times Square, divided it into a series of different 'frames', and is now inviting users to remove the advertising from each still via the site.
It's a bit of a fiddly process to do this: users pick a frame they want to work on, which is then opened in Aviary, a Photoshop-style package. They are then encouraged to use the programme's tools to remove the ads - a cinch for anyone familiar with Aviary maybe, but pretty tough for the casual user. Still, it seems likely that there are enough ad-haters out there who will take up the challenge.
The Aviary pages also come with a pre-loaded set of images of building façades (shown above) that you can replace the scrubbed-out ads with. Again, it helps if you know your way around Aviary already to achieve this, though. Once you've finished altering the picture, you can save it and it will be added to the site as a 'clean' image. After all the frames have been edited, an ad-free version of Times Square, created by the website's users, will be uploaded to the site.
Check out the No Ad: New York website at noadny.com.
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19 Comments
Nice concept, but I'd prefer it if it were a little more ambitious than simply crowdsourcing something that a designer could do themselves with a pot of coffee and a long day. Why not "ad-free your neighborhood" and give us the tools to do so?
2011-02-02 17:36:15
I can't help agreeing with Andrew. Whilst it's an interesting idea for one person to do, it does smack a bit of a panicked marketer's desire to get some kind of social interaction involved.
2011-02-02 17:50:17
Or how about they do it for real like in Sao Paulo. fat chance i know
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/73/Sao_Paulo_A_City_Without_Ads.html
2011-02-02 17:55:37
I love the ads. Tell me where to sign up to keep them.
2011-02-02 18:11:29
Outdoor advertising is an important art form. Why would NY want to do away with it? Maybe we should close MoMa and turn it into a park or a hotel?
2011-02-02 18:33:50
That's the idea Andrew. From NOADNY, we want people to expand the concept into imaginings of their own neighborhoods and cities and we hope to deliver these same tools through Aviary for them to do so in the near future. In our minds, this is only the first step of a larger, more interesting project and conversation.
Morgan Spurlock
2011-02-02 18:42:43
Agree with Andrew, plus Im no major ad man by any stretch of the imagination, I think what Sao Paulo did was incredible. But times square, the amount of ads and neon is amazing, the attack on the senses. It wouldn't be the same without them
A
2011-02-02 20:13:03
It'll be cool just to see how it turns out. It won't be smooth, but there'll be a sort of sense of creation for those involved, and rough is nice.
2011-02-03 02:07:58
Reminds me of something austrian photographer Gregor Graf did with his project Hidden Towns a few years ago. Oxford street has never looked so appealing.
http://www.gregorgraf.net/
2011-02-03 09:36:16
Can't help thinking that Times Square wouldn't be any kind of landmark at all if it weren't for the massive billboards. It'd just be another square in another city somewhere.
Also, I think I recall hearing Michael Beirut talking about the NY Times building signage and saying that there was actually some kind of planning protection in place to keep everything as massive and OTT as possible ie. minimum sizes for building signs etc.
2011-02-03 11:38:33
do they have some kind of quality control on this? it'd be pretty ironic if it became hijacked by spammers trying to promote their own stuff :)
2011-02-04 08:47:59
ed — I'm not sure I agree with your comment, you go somewhere like Dundee and tell me that you wouldn't notice an ad-free Times Square plonked in the middle of it.
2011-02-04 11:38:54
I love adverts!!
2011-02-04 12:18:43
Odd concept. I completely understand the idea of promoting this in local neighbourhoods and getting rid of ugly visual clutter at the end of your street is incredibly worthwhile. But Times Square, much like Piccadilly Circus in London, is a landmark entirely created from ads. It's a visual blast of consumer Americana, and its place in pop culture is so vital. Just watch The Sweet Smell of Success or Midnight Cowboy and imagine those movies without the real Times Square.
2011-02-04 12:36:35
Struggling to see the point of this - are the ad's / hoardings / LED displays covering up beautiful architecture that we're missing out on? I doubt it, and there's plenty of that to see in Manhatten.
Time Square is totally "full on" and ultimately ineffective for advertisers the real point is lost, however it's still a unique experience that everyone should try once.
Conversely, how do people feel about Piccadilly Circus, London - would do the same?
2011-02-04 12:44:37
To simply remove these ads or ban them as in Sao Paulo, would be a removal of an important element of modern culture.
The adverts are of our time and the architecture remains waiting underneath. I like the idea that when the application of advertising moves on from this physical nature we can revert to the hidden gems below!
Times Square is iconic purely because of the visual spectacle, removing them in reality would wipe out the reason people visit in the first place.
2011-02-04 13:19:12
Nice idea... but can't really see the point of it
2011-02-04 13:37:05
Great idea. The pics from São Paulo blew my head off. Why would anyone want to get rid of ads? I told a lot of people about this and I don't think many actually believed me. What happened to all those wonderful hand-painted billboards or does anyone remember the Araldite billboard with a car stuck to it. (It also sticks handles to teapots)? Keep it moving Morgan!
2011-02-04 15:39:32
the advertising is what makes time square take it away and it is not different from any other part of New York
2011-02-04 20:49:03
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