Dude Chilling Park. Photo by Gary AK

Remember the Dude Chilling sign that was installed, guerilla-style, in Guelph Park? Well it looks like it’s one step closer to becoming a permanent part of the greenspace. A just-released Park Board staff report is recommending this, and the issue will be discussed in detail at the next Board meeting on February 3, 2014.

The sign, using a clever duplication of the traditional Park Board palette, is the handiwork of local artist Victor Briestensky. At the time of its installation in November 2012, news of the guerilla work went quickly viral, and supporters circulated a petition to keep the sign. Over 1,500 signatures were gathered.

Shortly afterward, Park Board commissioners weighed in and asked for a formal consultation. The results of that process, outlined in a staff report, are up for consideration next week. In it, Parks staff write:

“Given the results of the [consultation] process… staff support the installation of the artwork in Guelph Park and also recommend installing a plaque next to the artwork, which includes a brief description of the piece and a reference to the Coast Salish connection to the land. Staff proposed the artwork be sited in its original location, which is adjacent to the sidewalk which will minimize the impact on other uses of the park..”

Which to our minds, is a great recommendation for a well-loved piece of guerrilla art. We hope Park Board Commissioners will agree.

It’s a given that advertisers are always looking for new ways to sell products and services – from ads in bathrooms and on building steps, and now – coming in January – on the fare cards used by Translink. From a marketing point of view, the more people you can get your message to, the better the “job” done by the ad. And newer and more novel forms of advertising help to fight that malaise that marketers dread the most: people tuning out of conventional forms of advertising hucksterism (a silent tragedy, we understand).

Unfortunately, the nature and placement of advertising often means that public space is impacted in a negative way. Urban spaces – sidewalks, utility poles, street-facing views – get targeted for branding activity and used as a medium to sell one or another projects.

To counter this, cities have long enacted mechanisms like sign bylaws in order to control the nature and distribution of outdoor advertising, particularly to limit its impact on the public realm. The intent is not to stop outdoor advertising, but to ensure that it doesn’t proliferate in an unchecked fashion.

By and large, we think the City of Vancouver has a pretty progressive Sign Bylaw. Unlike many cities, ours has fairly tight restrictions on the size of billboards, the presence of rooftop signage, the placement of sandwich boards and so forth. The challenge – and it’s a big challenge to be sure – has always been in the enforcement side of things. 

That, of course, bodes well for advertisers… who continue to test the limits of what they can get away with. As we’ve pointed out on a number of occasions, almost half the billboards in the city are actually non-compliant with the City’s bylaws… so if this is any indication, you can imagine the scale of the problem.

The image at the top of the page is another, newer example of the get-away-with-it-while-we-can school of advertising: a six-story projection sign for Oakridge Mall that loomed over the corner of Davie and Burrard on December 14. A rough guess places this non-compliant gem at about 8 times the allowed limit under the Sign-Bylaw… assuming that it even had the appropriate approvals in place (we doubt it).

It’s not the first time projection advertising has been used in Vancouver and likely won’t be the last… but it’s the biggest example that we’ve seen of this sort of thing in a while. 

The City is currently in the process of reviewing its Sign Bylaw. We hope there will be some opportunity to take a good look at the role that newer forms of advertising such as this will play in shaping the look of Vancouver. Our hope in this is that the City will continue to enact a progressive approach to outdoor signage and branding activity – because we believe that this will have a positive affect on the look of the city. Perhaps a clarification to advertisers might be in order as well: projection signs, ads etched into the sidewalk, mobile billboards – and all the other newer forms of marketing that have sprung up around Vancouver – are still forms of advertising subject to the City’s bylaw.

In the meanwhile, unless there’s a cry and hue that suggests that six-story projection advertisements actually strengthen the Vancouver aesthetic… we also hope that the City will work to reign in advertisers who opt to circumvent regulations.