Banners Have Gone Too Far
All over the city, especially downtown, you see banners for new condos and lofts. Long vacant buildings have massive colorful banners announcing the project and where to find more sales information. These are a great visual way to communicate that something is happening in these buildings. Visitors to our city can quickly see St. Louis is rockin. The banners, thankfully, are just temporary until the building is finished.
What about when the banner is not promoting a project but is purely advertising?
This weekend I spotted these colorful banners on the Market Street side of Mike Shannon’s new location. At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and had to loop back around to make sure I was seeing this correct. Yes, there in big letters was advertising for AT&T and Cingular Wireless. How tragic.
I’m not a fan of sterile streets. I like activity, color, lights and such. I’m also more inclined toward advertising for the business located in the building rather than a building owner selling their wall for advertising. I’m not a fan of vinyl banners.
A century ago we saw large sides of buildings painted with advertising, sometimes for the business in that building and sometimes not. Today those old signs are regarded as charming and actually helpful in identifying historical information. While I’m not advocating Mike Shannon’s paint advertising for AT&T on their building I do see a difference. The painting was semi-permanent and a testament to how long the business was expected to be around. Vinyl banners look cheap because they are cheap. The look temporary because they are. But how temporary?
Will Mike Shannon’s keep this banner up until AT&T changes their name again? Maybe until they find someone else that wants to sponsor their North wall? Are vinyl banners to become a common sight on buildings all over the city? I certainly hope not!
I scanned the City’s Comprehensive Sign Control Regulations but it wasn’t readily clear to me if the banner at Mike Shannon’s is in violation or not. Mike Shannon’s did an outstanding job on the renovation of the building with its large windows and attractive patio. Pity they felt it necessary to ruin the look as they have.
– Steve
I too like signage in general and think that is what is missing on our sterile streetscapes. Unfortunately, signage is too tightly regulated in the city. Blade signs (projecting signs)are actually illegal and require a variance every time. For me, the contrast was starkly evident when looking at the book, “Streets and Streetcars of St. Louis.” There is an image of Meramec Street looking east from Grand. Luckily, almost all the buildings remain and have remained remarkly unaltered but today it is devoid of the lively business signage which marked this as a busy and important place for commerce and social interaction. Like so many other issues (like density), the laws and attitudes of this city always seem to swing way too far in the opposite direction. Yes, signage should absolutely be regulated and there was time when it was seen as clutter, but a little clutter is a good thing.
That being said, the advertisement for at&t (all lower-case for now) doesn’t bother me so I must disagree. Would I prefer it weren’t a vinyl banner? Sure, but I assume it is up for opening day at the ballpark and will come down before it becomes a ragged eyesore. Kevin McGowan and Mike Shannon have put too much into that development to let that happen. I don’t mind that businesses see the value in advertising to their customers in places other than on their own buildings. It means they expect people to see it and that means they expect activity and I am all for that. I would prefer a permant jumbo-tron type screen on the south side of the Kiener garages ala Times Square or Piccadilly Circus but for now temporary vinyl banners will do nicely — thank you very much.
[REPLY Well, today is opening day at the ballpark so we’ll see if the banners come down this week. I suspect they wouldn’t go to that much trouble and expense for a single game. What if it was up for the entire baseballl season, would it still be OK??? – SLP]
Would you feel better if the banner was advertising the Gelateria or The Touring Cyclist?
Just wondering if the issue has as much to do what (vinyl banners) the advertisement is or who (a large multi-national corporation) the advertisement is for.
[REPLY Good question, that might be part of the issue. Still, had Mike Shannon’s put up a huge banner with a pro-Cardinals message or a ‘join us in our new location after the game’ type message I would have thought it was a fun & temporary addition. Instead it is a generic billboard without the urbanity that an actual roof-top billboard brings. – SLP]
Personally, I don’t care what they put on or in that building, it’s still an ugly little two-story drive-thru branch bank building.
That site can do much better. Maybe if the Ballpark Village gets developed, it will become more of a highlight, as it’s a pretty crucial location between the old stadium site and Kiener Plaza.
[REPLY Agreed! The building is damn ugly and while the new restaurant windows & patio do a good job it simply cannot compensate for the poor design. Land value should be high enough that it would have been prudent to raze the building and construct something taller. – SLP]
I think that a bigger visual mess is the group of permanent corporate logos on the new Busch Stadium. I am glad that the Cardinals didn’t sell every blank wall section as the city did with the hideous Jones Dome, but the concentration of ads behind the display board on Broadway is very ugly.
It would be very interesting to know if the Cardinals received a permit for the signage on the outside of the stadium.
I haven’t heard from one member of the public who finds the exterior advertising classy.
“Cheesy” is the more common description.
[REPLY I’m not going to waste my time searching for a permit because I’d be willing to bet in all the redevelopment ordinances this was covered. I’m planning a review of the new Busch Stadium and this is something I’ll cover in more detail there. I actually like the billboard on roof on the corner, seems urban to me. What I don’t like is all the smaller ads as seen from Clark on the East side of the ballpark. I can’t imagine this advertising makes a big difference in their total operating budget. – SLP]
I think you reference the difference between a label and an advertisement.
A label is a good thing when it references its context and gives meaning and description to it.
An advertisement is generic with little to no value addition nor reference to its specific context. An advertisement thus de-individualizes you – the viewer. As though you are not a person of that locality, but just another individual that makes up its aggregate market.
Now, if the advertisement somehow references its context by being specific to it – specific to you, its viewer, targetting its market, it would likely be more successful an advertisement as well as a label for the community.
This needs to be researched but I don’t have time to do it so hopefully my memory can point someone in the right direction. I believe the Downtown Partnership may have some authority over signage downtown. This was done so they could help spur owners to put up more signs and banners by avoiding the sign permitting process which can be draconian. The purpose was to help create a sense of life. Downtown Now or the Partnership also commissioned a sign standards manual which was actually pretty decent.
I saw a story on channel 4 news a few days ago about the banners and that the City is investigating the legality of several of them. Below is the text of the story that I copied from their website so everyone does not have to go through their stupid registration to get to the story. On another note, here is a link to a very interesting thesis project that someone did recently about painted wall signs in St. Louis:
http://www.stlwalls.com/
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Ads around Busch prompt investigation
10:05 PM CDT on Friday, April 7, 2006
(KMOV) – New views of the downtown skyline are not the only visuals the new Busch Stadium is creating.
The Cardinals are cashing in on the outdoor advertising possibilities offered by the new stadium and they’re not alone.
Large banner ads are popping up, and now the city’s investigating to see which ones are legal, and which have to go.
More than a year ago the city loosened restrictions on banner ads up for less than 6 months, but they can only advertise products for sale on the premises or an event, be no larger than 30% of the facade or wall where they’re placed, and there is a limit of one sign per structure.
The new Mike ShannonÂ’s restaurant has two signs, one advertising lofts which aren’t in the building and the other advertising Cingular Wireless and AT&T.
The Tums building’s classic neon beacon to heartburn sufferers was torn down in 2001. Now the city wants to look into it’s replacement facing the new stadium.
There are also huge banners covering multiple stories of the old Pet building that is being converted into apartments.
Even a tractor-trailer painted as an AT&T ad is parked on a city street next to the stadium.
I drove by the new Mike Shannon’s today. The at&t/Cingular advertisement was gone, replaced with a much smaller banner welcoming Cardinals fans.