Posters
October 6th, 2008
Green Party candidate Ellen Michelson has decided not to put up campaign signs in public spaces throughout her riding of Toronto Centre. “Public space is everyone’sâ€, she says, and she feels uncomfortable altering that space …
June 26th, 2008
Have you noticed how green this city is right now? I’ve been nearly knocked off my bike or feet a number of times in the last few weeks by either the smell of this city or some particularly stunning ultra-vivid green vista. The same weather systems that are causing such terrible floods in the American Midwest are dumping just enough rain on Southern Ontario to turn this chunk of province into a rain forest. Word in the dog park the other day was that the Don had crested its banks and covered the path (and there have been some flash floods in the north part of the city). The last few days in particular have seen the Ailanthus Altissima (check out arborist-about-town Todd Irvine’s “Tree of Heaven” Tree Tuesday write up of these infamously named “Cum Trees,” due to their notorious scent) explode, invading every nostril in nose-shot, even inside air-conditioned buildings. This is the smell of spring, and this year it’s the olfactory analogue of those Iowa and Illinois floods. Sitting at the bar in the Rivoli last night, arguably as concrete-encased as any part of Toronto can get, I noticed that the smell flooded inside. It feels thick. Wet and thick and organic. Like you’re walking through spoors, stamens and damp leaves writ metropolitan.
June is the greatest month because everything is new and fresh and sometimes obnoxious. Come late July or August — those dog days — the natural city starts to get a wilted and worn-out look to it. Beaten down by smog days, exhaust, heat emergencies and herbivorous bugs that make erratic mandible patterns in the leaves, it is the point when you might euphemistically refer to the leaves or season as being “of a certain age.” Right now, the city has its baby skin and we can’t escape the constant anxiety that it all has to be sucked up as quickly and voluminously as possible, like some Scorsese cocaine addict hoarding everything that makes his or her body feel good, lest you let it slip through your fingers.
Steam rises from clumps of trees in the distance, especially in those places where you can see a vista like around the Don Valley. Here on the edge of the valley the hot-wet-steam-green is only a couple minutes away. I’ve taken to going for dusk-to-dark runs up the Don Valley paths. This long route up to the top of Rosedale is good, as is this Brickworks run. Down in the valley it gets even thicker, and sometimes there are strange cool spots — kind of like the cold spots in a Muskoka lake — that can send chills up an already sweaty spine. The paths get dark and deserted at this hour and even though you’re in the middle of 4.5 million people it’s easy to be alone with only a good cadence and a deep-house-music podcast until a deer (as happened on Sunday night coming down from the Brickworks’ observation point) or a (very occasional and harmless) Valley dweller wanders out into the path and scares you out of the trance. On some of these humid nights, it’s like running underwater — algae-covered water like that found in nearby Binscarth Swamp.
June 11th, 2008
On Monday and Tuesday, the City of Toronto displayed examples of Astral’s new street furniture elements in front of City Hall. For years, I’ve lamented why I don’t like the economic model the City has chosen for the street furniture contract, so I won’t rehash it again. Maybe in 20 years, when Astral’s half-billion dollar contract is up and we can see how much the City got hosed, I can have the last laugh. But I’ll be in my 50s by then, and my sense of humour will have likely changed.
So today, let’s talk about the design and functionality.
On first glance, all the pieces look pretty much like the renderings we saw last year when the City was fielding proposals. My opinion from a year ago hasn’t changed much either — underwhelming. There is a part of me that wants to see killer designs, pieces of street furniture that are uniquely Toronto. There’s another side of me that has seen enough garbage bins and bus shelters from other cities in North America and Europe — simple, elegant and blend into the background of the streetscape — that convince me that over-designing these elements can make the items feel dated really quickly. Astral’s street furniture designs seem to fall in between my two sentiments: they are kinda attractive and kinda boring; kinda unique and kinda generic. Probably my biggest complaint comes from the lack of colour in any of the pieces — this greyness seems to fit the dour mood of city hall finances, which is what originally forced the City to enter into such a crap-shoot of a deal. Sadly, only the bench, poster kiosk, and garbage bins are new and original designs.
April 30th, 2008
We are constantly bombarded by ads. On buses, garbage bins, TTC shelters and in the sky line they are hard to escape. But after a while of living in the city, one becomes immune to their carefully constructed lure. For better or worse, ads are a part of the urban fabric that you can learn to ignore. However, once in a while an ad comes along that captures our attention. It’s intriguing and beguiling. It’s edgy and cool…but, it’s an ad.
This is true of the life-sized hipsters with scooter heads that have been pasted at street-level on the sides of buildings across town. Canadian photographer and graffiti artist Fauxreel is responsible for the scooter-men, dubbed Antlerheads. Fauxreel’s work, especially his pasting, is known for being off-beat and innovative. He plays with perspective, pop culture and politics. The Antlerheads are so appealing that both the Globe and Mail and blogTO have praised their effective marketing.
The added mystique of the Antlerheads is that they are not labelled. There is no immediate brand recognition, or website to quell the inquisitive of their curiosity. But a stroll down a certain scooter shop on Queen St. East or College St. will reveal who is responsible for the ads.
The Antlerheads are part of an aggressive Vespa ad campaign to promote their newest scooter. These pasted hipsters are or will also be appearing in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal. They will soon be accompanied by a television commercial and roving Vespas that will project images onto walls in the club district.
Despite the creativity of the campaign, this form of guerrilla marketing is illegal. Even if the advertising company responsible for these ads got permission from property owners to paste the Antlerheads on the exterior walls of their buildings, as third party advertising, they require a permit from city hall. And, according to Rami Tabello of illegalsigns.ca, chances are, they didn’t. “It’s easy to tell that they are illegal. They are located in places not permitted in the signs by-law and didn’t receive city council permission,†says Tabello.
July 17th, 2007
I recently spent a few days in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It was the first time I’ve visited an Eastern European post-socialist city and it was interesting reconciling it with the mythical Tito-era Croatia my neighbours …
May 13th, 2007
In today’s Toronto Star, writer Murray Whyte examines the current state of postering in the city and discovers that the corporate advertisers are not only taking over our street furniture, they now control postering on major streets….
May 10th, 2007
Inasmuch as history is supposed to be rooted in objectively recorded facts, such accounts often overlook the multi-layered texture of people’s lives and, at times, have even ignored entire events and viewpoints. As a local response to such …
May 9th, 2007
Bikes on Bloor anyone?
The City of Toronto is embarking on an exciting study to develop a planning vision for the future development of Bloor Street West, between Avenue Road and Bathurst Street. You are invited to …
December 11th, 2006
Spacing’s very own Shawn Micallef had a piece about the thimble public art piece found at the northeast corner of Richmond and Spadina in the weekend’s Globe and Mail. Click here to read the entire article.
A giant …
