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Monday, July 27, 2009

Cardon Copy



Cardon Copy is an ongoing project by Cardon Webb, who has taken it upon himself to redesign and replace handwritten fliers posted in and around New York City.
"Cardon Copy, takes the vernacular of self-distributed fliers and tear-offs we have all seen in our neighborhoods. It involves hijacking these unconsidered fliers and redesigning them, over powering their message with a new visual language. I then replace the original with the redesign in its authentic environment."
Via IDSGN.





10 comments:

  1. It's an awesome concept, I never imagined how those hand-made flyers with professional design would look.
    Great work!

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  2. i find that the "unconsidered fliers" (per artist statement) in and of themselves create a visual landmark for whatever they are highlighting. garage sale and missing animal signs are identifiable from far away due to their simple, direct approach to the topic at hand.

    if the artist's goal was to make everything look like a band poster, then i say success! they are beautiful, i just don't think they are successful - unless "overpowering their message with a new visual language" means that the original message is altogether lost, thus eliminating the need for the flier in the first place?

    really, don't take this as totally negative; i think the garage sale flier is bitchin.'

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  3. Don't you think the original poster owner would prefer that the design be readable? Especially since the original is being removed? Some of these designs are cool as designs but don't get the rather important message across.

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  4. Hey guys - thanks for your comments - it's nice to see a discussion on the blog. I think that your criticisms of the project are definitely valid. In a sense, the message of the original flyer gets muddied because it is turned into a graphic poster. I think our preconceived notions of what a street flyer is (a piece of paper that presents the bare minimum information in such a way as to best get the message across, usually black and white, and generally poorly designed) makes it difficult to take a nicely designed "missing" poster seriously. The more urgent a posting (missing dog, lost ring, whatever it might be), the less designed it seems it should be. It's hard to believe that a frantic dog owner would have spent 10 hours designing a "missing" flyer; therefore I if I saw one of these on the street, I would tend to think the posting was a joke or an art project of some kind. Which is exactly what Cardon Copy is (a design project, not a joke). As a design project I think it is successful (and as an idea, novel), although I acknowledge that he's probably not doing the original poster any favors.

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  5. I'd say the original posters were purposefully designed.
    The replacements are a demonstration of the vacuous purposelessness of adding a "Design" touch to an otherwise clear and spontaneous message...

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  6. I think the main problem is that the text is hard to read in some instances, reducing its utility. Also, in the "dog found" poster, keeping the original picture of the dog is the main point of the flyer. I like the general idea.

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  7. Mmm. You have to be pretty odd to do this to someone's lost pet poster.

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  8. Retract previous comment, suggesting man is odd. He is 'experimenting' with the effect of designing 'over' things. Apparently. Still a bit odd.

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  9. I really like the Cleaning Lady, Room for Rent, and Missing Cat remakes!

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