Reading between the signs

The Face from Space and the Heineken Highway

At the end of 2006, KFC announced a global re-imaging campaign of cosmic scale – literally. The fast food empire constructed a 26 670 square metre sign of Colonel Sanders in Rachel, Nevada, which is apparently the first and only sign to be visible from space. This is only the third time in 50 years that KFC has changed its logo, and the message of this galactic signage is clear: No matter who or where you are in the world, Kentucky Fried Chicken, with its ’Face from Space‘ signage campaign, can reach you – by virtue of its sheer magnitude.

On a similar, though slightly less colossal, degree, Heineken recently unveiled its latest advertising campaign in Johannesburg, South Africa: a massive billboard on the N2 highway. The sign occupies all three corners of a multiple-story building, revealing a huge black expanse with an image of fresh, sharp icicles hanging from the top. One of the icicles is coated in the familiar Heineken green and displays the beer’s logo.

It is the vastness of the black abyss that wrenches one’s attention from the road; in fact, market research conducted for the campaign revealed through a cross-section survey, that the average driver on that particular highway is the ideal target market for Heineken beer. The sign’s potency is increased as peak hour traffic forces drivers to slow down and delay their journey by approximately 15 minutes. Without doubt, the power of billboard signage lies in its simplicity and catchy, to-the-point slogan. Like KFC’s ’Face from Space‘ its efficacy is its size.

Self-Centred Signage

But maybe the power of sizeable signage is beginning to lose its supremacy, in a hyper-modern society where even the term ‘information overload’ is, by now, outdated. Do we really respond to a sign we can see from the moon or do we react more rapidly to a sign that speaks to us as individuals?

In Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller, Minority Report (2002), one of the more memorable scenes is one in which Tom Cruise’s character, police chief John Anderton, walks through the streets of an elegant, futuristic super-city and a plethora of signage and commercial eye candy bombards him: flat screen televisions, sign posts, banners and billboards, all advertising their wares and, most strikingly, speaking directly to him.

According to Philip K. Dick, the writer of the short story on which this film is based, this is the ultimate future of effective advertising _ personalised messages that speak to the individual. Though we may be some way away from an era in which signs detect precisely who we are and what we need (or what we think we need) advertisers have realised that the effect of mass-produced media is somewhat diluted. We’re faced with an onslaught of images, and we’re exposed to a message every second.
In today’s world, sign-making need not be futuristic, but it does need to look to the future. In a time when PVR allows us to fast-forward adverts that bore us, signs have the potential to become far more powerful in advertising and communicating information.

Sporting Signage

With TV, signs are easily avoidable. So how do advertisers make their signage unavoidable? At a sporting event, where up to 60 000 viewers are watching a single space for 90 minutes, the advertising imagery is literally impossible to ignore. Mobile digital signs surround the field and enter our sub-conscious, whether we are aware of it or not - now that’s smart advertising! We are turned into consumers simply by our acknowledgement of the signs around us, regardless of whether or not we relate to the brand on the screen.
In fact, even a refusal to consume is one of the many complex facets of consumerism.

We need to acknowledge that the signs are in front of us to decide to reject their message. Today, digital signage screens are used extensively in indoor spaces to advertise and clothing brands such as Diesel and Levi’s have created target market-appropriate music to accompany the visuals. Harrods and the Arndale, Trafford and Frenchgate Centres have all made use of digital signage. And so the power of digitised sign creation seems to surpass that of a sign that can be viewed from outer space. To state the obvious, the consumers are right here on earth.

A step beyond piercing the minds of consumers is signage that is attached to global recognition: wordless signage or a symbol that is the sign itself. This is surely even more powerful than screens that require images in motion to communicate a certain brand. The global brands that need no linguistic explanation seem the most powerful of all. McDonalds’ golden arches, the Nike swoosh, BMW’s symbol of propellers that whip around in a blue sky and Apple Mac’s emblem of a green apple with a bite taken out of it are signs that are ingrained in the minds of all consumers, whether or not you enjoy McDonalds, wear Nike shoes, drive a BMW, or use an Apple computer.
And so, while signage of considerable size such as Heineken’s mega-story billboard is a forceful brand communicator, signs that don’t rely on any one language to communicate are powerful signs indeed. And the ideal location for wordless signage, in a word, would be, well, everywhere.

Anti-Symbolic Signage

If there is a re-definition of signage, sign creation and symbolism, graffiti must be it. Within the often incongruent barrage of spray paint images smeared on the public spaces of most major cities, London graffiti artist Banksy has made the city his playground, with politically conscious, highly original and unapologetically playful imagery.

Banksy turns high art on its head with communication through glorified vandalism. In 1993, his graffiti started appearing on trains and walls throughout Bristol. By 2001, his signature defacement could be found all over the United Kingdom. His work, ever teasing the boundaries of the law, is sign, signlessness, symbol and anti-symbol all at once. What is an artist such as Banksy communicating? Labels such as Adidas, Reebok and Sprite have made use of graffiti artists for their sign manufacturing campaigns to appeal to a younger, cooler market. But would Banksy even refer to himself as an artist?

Does he have a specific ‘market’ in mind? Rather, he rejects the formal, commercial mode of sign fabrication and instead, ‘speaks’ through the raw canvas of the urban landscape. His flippant, somewhat ephemeral graffiti signage includes images of Winston Churchill with a Mohawk and apache helicopters with pink bows wrapped around them. Self-described as a “quality vandal”, Banksy will never verify or deny the symbolism behind this. It is what the perceiver wants it to be. And in the world of sign recognition and absorption, one cannot hope for a more powerful result