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TIMES SQUARE: PULL UP A CHAIR
June 12, 2009 by Jennifer Bostic
This May, New York City officials closed Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th Street to vehicular traffic. This new pedestrian zone in Times Square was created after years of planning for the actual physical space. Orange cones appeared overnight. Traffic was diverted. In place of speeding yellow cabs, lawn chairs and chaise lounges appeared. In place of manic, moving pedestrians, a calmness came over these 5 blocks. The physical (and visual) pace of the area changed overnight. In what was once an area of speed, movement, constant activity—one finds stillness, the ability to sit back, and take in all that is Times Square.
So what does this mean from a graphic design standpoint?
What does this slower pace mean in terms of communicating with environmental graphics, billboards, and media in the area? With years of planning behind the actual physical space, when does the planning evolve for the actual graphics and messaging in the area? How does changing one thing influence the other? How do the graphics surrounding this new pedestrian zone connect with the seated viewer—rather than the hurried walker?
The new vehicle of Times Square is not a car. It’s the vehicle of communication.
Most of the environmental graphics in Times Square were developed with short attention spans in mind. The quick five second sight of words on a screen. People coming and going from the theatre. Meaningless moving patterns. The attention-deficit-disorder style of communication. Static advertisements that are more visual clutter than communication vehicles. Moving cars, moving people, moving attention from one chaotic set of visuals to another. Short headlines. Images designed to grab attention from the chaos. But now, with the ability to sit for hours in the square, how can designers embrace this new opportunity to communicate?
Imagine playing a sponsored movie on a series of screens. Times Square as a living, breathing, outdoor theatre. Sitting back in one of the lawn chairs for 2 or more hours on a Saturday night with a pizza and friends.
Imagine using the square to screen a film festival, with various venues. Coordinating the color of the chair with the theme of the screening.
Imagine using design to communicate to the visitors to the square about cleaning up after themselves, about throwing trash away. This has become one primary concern for the area over the last week.
Imagine using the street surface to contain interactive graphics people can play around with. Painting a huge Twister on the ground. Or a human chessboard. Embedding interactive piano keys within the sidewalk where people can create music. Things that encourage people to stay in the Square and interact more with the environment around them instead of being dominated by it.
Instead of people being dwarfed in scale by the square, people playing a role in the drama of the environment.
Imagine using sound to broadcast the reading of a book, or project live concert feed from somewhere else.
Imagine other communication techniques that embrace the idea of someone sitting in the square for an hour (or two) lunch break. Print advertisements and billboards that instead of using a short sweet headline, they include text and messaging that embrace this feeling of time and saturation. Design that evokes this slower pace of Broadway.
What should Times Square become in the future based on the idea of people pulling up a chair, and taking a moment to be still?
I encourage you all to go to Times Square, pull up a chair. Look around you. Be still. And think about how the world around you should change based on this new perspective.
“A thanks to Tim Partridge for the inspiration.”
Jennifer Bostic, Principal, Paper Plane Studio
Specializing in corporate visual voice projects, print systems and books, identity design, and exhibition design, Jennifer is a welcome leading voice in the GRAPHIK Blog
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