215th anniversary Odessa meets with repaired roads at the Fontain, Balkovskaya st., Kolontayevskaya st., Tiraspolskaya st. the result was that, of course, it is easier to ride, and attention from the pits and ditches is already possible to switch to the facades and the ads. All the efforts spent on bringing order the outdoor advertising, came down to the fact that now appearing new, much more expensive vehicles, and construction began less artisanal and accordingly, more proprietary. However, if in the center of these emerging media images, texts and which are unacceptable for the image of the old city, in the aggregate all that is often seen quite comical.
I am sure that all the Odessites realize that most tourists are coming to Odessa, with already established image of the legendary city of Utesov, Babel, Ilf and Petrov, Kataev, times, which partly cheap popular culture of Odessa passed vividly emotional, and it is this part of this culture needs to be reproduction and should, in my opinion, to find the map on the facades of all the stylistic nuances of the era of cultural prosperity of the city.
I understand that the essence of any brand would benefit if the visual communication will be correlated with cultural heritage, not a formal sound of the word, but the true, which is in the minds of the people who are coming to the city and expecting to see the legacy of by the Deribas, Vorontsov, Richeliye. I am sure that the way which will make all the signs to be resolved in a unified manner and filed under a single historical sauce will attract to Odessa, a much larger number of wealthy tourists. Finally, everyone wins.
Now we are all witnessing a sharp discrepancy spirit of the central streets to the image of advertising media: its not enough to repair the facade, but the signs must conform the ideology of city architecture. Unfortunately, a lot of bulk acrylic letters, neon signs, light boxes, spotlights, running neon and flashing stroboscopes, versatile design and medias make Deribasovskaya look like a Cairo market. In fact, for the odessa not typical to have an inner illumination signboards, and moreover neon - the historic streets and facades of Odessa were highlighted outside with the warm, soft light. I believe that the nature of outdoor advertising should be directly linked with the history, architecture of the building, color and texture of the facade, and materials for the boards should be brought to the authentic to XIX century. Glass, wood, canvas will have most natural look, like they actually made in the XIX century.
Developing of such signs have to belong to not advertising agencies, which are pulling boards to the different directions, often managed by designers with questionable taste, but to the separate bureau that will really direct a unified style of boards. Of course, the style of signage must be pre-selected maximum carefully and weighed, because otherwise the whole city will be covered with another layer of advertising horror.
Savely Libkin for the magazine "Afisha of Odessa"
