Wednesday, April 09, 2008


Design--Southern style is a wonderful smash up with old school hand lettered signs/mural-wall advertisement and the 21st century mesh ads that hangs over it's most popular downtown city-haunts.

I just returned from a weekend trip to Memphis, TN and the juxtaposition of the downtown scenes of Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train" and the slick advertising of the main shopping/tourist destination of Peabody Place work well together as the city experiences a gentrification.

"Emerge Memphis" is the message plastered on the bombed out/abandoned warehouse buildings along Main Street remind me of the industrial and older looking areas of Indianapolis. Currently, downtown Indy has several old fashion hand painted wall murals ads around downtown--you can see remnants of these murals on College (from 11th street to 16th).

I just wonder what will become of some of the older structures and graffiti/murals around town. Will they be re-used for current branding messages or one day be covered over completely?

I live in the Fountain Square Area of Indy, the square (or really peninsula) supports mural projects on it's buildings and tries to include the art community in every aspect of it's promotion (the Fountain Square Arts Festival, Masterpiece in a Day, etc.) but I would love to see how the rest of downtown Indianapolis develops with a similar "emerge."

Just a thought....