Imagine a world without ads. No false promises – no desire to buy. Unbelievable.
Writings, logos and posters have always been part of the urban realm, thus never in this dominance. The municipality of Sao Paulo regarded them as “visual pollution” and decided a total ban of outdoor advertising (see Tony de Marco photo stream on flickr). “Almost all outdoor signage, public transportation advertising and video screens have been removed in an effort to reduce the amount of ‘visual pollution’” (source: Wikipedia). In 2007 mayor Gilberto Kassab has reduced outdoor ads by law as part of the so-called “Clean City campaign” (for example on a 10m high façade 1.5 m² advertisement surface is allowed).
Maybe this forces advertisers to work with the city in a more creative way instead of reducing it to poster walls?
(see large-scale billboards on anArchitecture)