Photo Courtesy of Flickr user spieri_sf
I don’t know if there’s more of a pinnacle of achievement in outdoor advertising than when your billboard becomes an iconic part of the landscape. This billboard for Yahoo has stood in San Francisco for 12 years, and now it’s coming down. More than just being a well-designed and well-constructed sign, this billboard was a living and breathing piece of advertising. Each week the short lines on the bottom changed. Sometimes it promoted new services. Sometimes it was just fun. Sometimes it was timely. And once, they even let an employee propose to his girlfriend on it. Just take a look at how many pictures of this billboard exist on Flickr. When’s the last time someone took a picture of your billboard and shared it with the world? It’s tough to get that kind of love.
Yahoo is struggling for relevance in today’s era of Google, Facebook and Twitter. As iconic and beloved as this billboard is, it might be promoting Yahoo’s place in history rather than the present. Still, it’s too bad that we’re going to lose yet another piece of good design which will probably be replaced with something cheap, ugly and disposable. As a side note, check out this video of designer Aaron Draplin discussing the unpleasant changes in our visual landscape. (Warning: lots of swearing)
