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Photo: G R N Somashekar

Eye-catching Huge hoardings are instant distracters

Billboards have become a great medium of out-of-home advertising. Placed at vantage points, high-density traffic junctions and zones, busy roads and along highways where people stare involuntarily, designing these boards is a demanding job and calls for many stylistic variations.

“We use Photoshop to create these images. We have to factor in lot of elements like the product, the colour that goes with it, the angles passers-by will look at, location where it’s going to be placed and the fonts to be used,” says Vasanth K., an ad designer. Locations like towers and high-rise buildings provide stylistic variations likethe architecture of the building or the tower and design to weave the ambience. The design should be in sync with the surroundings, providing a natural fit-in. Prakash G., also ad designer, experiments with elements of street art to lend a touch of a street feel to the boards.

The images, matched with striking catch phrases, could jolt anyone out of their reverie. “Our aim is to capture maximum number of eyeballs by means of art and technology,” he says. “The snazzier and snappier a board is, the better for the company,” he adds. The designers also keep track of the material that gives a better look and feel. The trend is to use recyclable lightweight plastic material for a blow-up instead of PVC vinyl sheets, which cannot be recycled.

Copywriters and designers pick on slogans with punch and snap and catchy words in bold fonts and bright colours that are loud. A billboard can be designed in different ways: a simple full-blown one or like the Hutch company hoarding which shows different profiles and angles of a face slipping off the board and placed across different locations, thus creating a suspense for denouement, for full image of the face.

Hoardings elicit different reactions. “I like billboards with witty messages that have the snap and punch,” says Ramesh, a degree second year student. He likes the way copywriters use a few impacting words.

But for people like Subba Rao, a 60-year-old retired employee, the billboards are nothing more than a ‘visual pollution’ apart from the “noise pollution that we already have. A momentary lapse in concentration while driving can cause havoc,” he says annoyingly pointing to a giant-size hoarding of a skimpily clad model. The ones with bright colours are a cause of worry for pedestrians. The authorities concerned should restrict them, especially the billboards with red colour,” he says emphatically.

Unlike the traditional mode of advertising, digital technology has given designers high manoeuvrability in executing their concepts. The passer-by can interact with the ad as in the coca-cola billboard at Piccadilly Circus, which matches its colours with the changing patterns of the weather and gushes out an exuberant splash of colour when you wave at it. In the scamper and scramble for mind share, digital billboards with interactive features are the highway.

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