The End of Advertising

Imagine a city stripped clean of all its advertising. No billboards. No posters. No Adshels. No nothing. In December 2006, this fantastical statement became a harsh reality for São Paulo, Brazil. Known as ‘Lei Cidade Limpa’, the Clean City Law, it was an initiative of Mayor, Gilberto Kassab, and intended to cleanse the city of what he dubbed its ‘visual pollution’. 

Michael Canturi, a designer at Coley Porter Bell, won the company Blue Sky competition, and chose to go to Sao Paulo to investigate. This is his post. 

Blue Sky

Coley Porter Bell hold an annual competition called 'Blue Sky' which encourages entrances to explore a passion, one that is likely to in some way be connected to creativity. Past winners have created an adult, retro ice cream brand, explored the role of colour on buildings, looked at the effect of billboard ban in Sao Paulo and even explored fear. Here is a link, and here as well. The winner gets £3000 and two weeks off to spend on their Blue Sky project. They have to give a presentation to the company once completed. The entries are submitted anonymously, so the selection panel are judging on the merit of the entry.

The winning entry for 2006 was to write a book. This is it, written, printed and complete with blurb and quotes on the back cover, a 400 page plus parody of the branding industy: