Green Graffiti or marketing SXSW for under $1,000

http://blog.loku.com/the-making-of-green-graffiti/

by lloydarmbrust • 14 years ago

44 26 14 years ago

blog.loku.com

MrSourz• 14 years ago

That's actually rather cool.

PanMan• 14 years ago

Hard to achieve without local help: where does one get a powewasher, water, etc. But the effect is cool, and cleaning public streets must be legal.

bonzoesc• 14 years ago

You get them from equipment rental companies; they're not expensive.

adrianhoward• 14 years ago

Cleaning the streets might be legal, but public advertising without permission is illegal in the UK at least.

SwellJoe5• 14 years ago

You might think cleaning of streets must be legal...but, in a Texas town experiencing a long hard drought, it probably isn't. Austin was under stage 2 water restrictions at that time, which prohibits washing of sidewalks and streets.

jrockway3• 14 years ago

It's not clear that they didn't bring their own water from somewhere else, however.

jjcm• 14 years ago

Also known as reverse graffiti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_graffiti

Often times used by street taggers to force the city into cleaning a particular area. Cool example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwsBBIIXT0E&feature=relat...

Mizza• 14 years ago

Cool idea, incredibly lame use.

icanchew• 14 years ago

Cool. And for fun there should be a game of hopscotch appended with the ad.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Ok, this one is just great. We had the Microsoft 'stickers on the street' fiasco, we had the 'chalk goes into the bay' fiasco, this however, hard to argue with. And well cleanup is kind of part of the city's job in the first place.

Genius.

Now we need to do this for dusty windshields. Put the stencil across the back window of a dirty car, wipe with damp cloth, done.

a5seo• 14 years ago

The other cool thing is if "everyone did it" then you'd have some damned clean sidewalks. The potential for abuse or taking this too far is very limited.

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

Or you'd have sidewalks totally littered with advertisements.

SwellJoe5• 14 years ago

Devil's advocate: Austin was under stage 2 water restrictions at the time of SXSW (and still is). It is illegal, and unethical, to use water for outdoor cleaning like this during a drought in a thirsty city like Austin (i.e. no power washing sidewalks, etc.). That's probably why the sidewalks were so dirty, providing a nice dirty canvas for their graffiti.

Certainly, this is better than stickers and chalk, but it's still not very environmentally friendly on a large scale, in a city like Austin, where everyone is watching their gardens and grass get crispy due to lack of water. Water matters in Texas.

mikeryan• 14 years ago

Cool video of "Moose" doing a big reverse graffiti mural in San Francisco's Broadway tunnel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lX-2sP0JFw

mrkmcknz• 14 years ago

Great idea!

In the UK however the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 means advertising without permission could land you n hot water.

Shame though, I'd love this in my city centre!

mparlane• 14 years ago

While this is cool, it is neither new or good.

The result looks great, no paint used! Must be ok?

To me it would still seem there was a cost of cleanup, therefore damage has been done. For the council to remove the graffiti they would have to clean the surronding pavement.

edit: I knew this would be downvoted, but my personal opinion still stands. This is not free to cleanup... Chalk is easier[to cleanup], chalk disapears with rain.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

Encouraging public services to clean up the streets isn't damage in my book.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2007/10/dirty-trick-cau/

avree• 14 years ago

Public services weren't leaving the streets dirty because they were lazy, they were leaving the streets dirty because they were rationing water due to drought...

Zaheer• 14 years ago

Great implementation! This is a superb method of guerilla marketing. I actually mentioned a few of mine in a blog post a while back: http://blog.zaheer.me/2012/05/guerilla-marketing.html

danskil• 14 years ago

I live in Austin, please don't do this. Not to mention our sidewalks aren't nearly as dirty as say LA, and it won't look as nice. A few years ago whrrrl put down a bunch of chalk on the sidewalks and never cleaned it up, it's still there and now it's just embarrassing. Graffiti is graffiti. Etching your name into dirt is still etching your name into something.

AustinEnigmatic• 14 years ago

I say do it until a city official tells you not to.

Green Graffiti or marketing SXSW for under $1,000

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