Oh, I like this. I like the heck out of this.
You know, “society” says that it is against the law to paint graffiti on a wall. But I think it should be illegal to erect an ugly grey concrete wall in the first place.
If you’re interested, Akay has more projects — none quite like this — on his website.
Someone in Portland turned a bike lane into an homage to Mario Kart, with the addition of just a few evocative details. Well done!
Man, now I desperately want a can of yellow spray paint and some stencils.
I’ve always had a thing for people who deface street signs or billboards, with one caveat — it has to be clever, or make me laugh. Sometimes, they don’t. Luckily, they often do.
Here’s a three-part gallery (part one, part two, part three) of defaced street signs that (mostly) accomplish that mission!
When I was in Montreal as a young lad, there were bilingual stop signs that said ARRETE / STOP, but francophone activists had taken red paint and covered over the S, the top of the T, part of the O and the round part of the P. That left a message of ARRETE ICI — or “stop here”. I believe that was my introduction to the world of culture jamming, although that term hadn’t been invented yet, or Adbusterized.
On the streets of my home town, I often see pedestrian crosswalk signs — which normally feature a generic walking man — given the “skateboarder” treatment (it’s simple to add a skateboard underneath just about any stick figure) or the “corporate drone” treatment (also, simple to add a briefcase and dollar figures about the head).
Go doodlers!
