With Consort’s festival Dori Pole Pennant System, we receive quite a few questions similar to, “Does the Dori Pole really keep birds away from wherever it’s installed?” The amazing answer is, “Yes!” it really does do all that! I’m not even exactly sure how we discovered that it had that effect on birds. I believe it was about three years ago when someone, who had bought one to put on his lake dock just for the color and flutter, wrote to us with, “Did you know that the pennants seem to discourage geese from loitering under them?” Well, no we really hadn’t made the connection ourselves, surprisingly enough.
After that email we immediately did a bit of research that resulted in the honest conclusion that birds, any type of birds, including geese, ducks, blue heron (unfortunately!) and so on, just don’t want to be under that flowing pennant and are probably also frightened or distracted by the large moving shadow that is created with the movement. With our own lake dock in Michigan, where we have three pole installed at 20’ intervals, I then realized that we hadn’t had any of the typical goose mess that we’d had in the past. And furthermore, this past spring, I hadn’t quite gotten the Dori Poles up quickly enough after we had installed our canopied Shore Station that the birds had started to make nests under canopy. We’d been away from the cottage for longer than usual in the spring and when we’d returned we had birds constantly flying under the canopy. I then installed the poles and pennants and the birds never returned.
So, there you go. A bird deterrent! And, with no obnoxious chemicals or funny noises. Yes, a "humane" bird deterrent.
Of course, the tall, elegant and colorful pennant product was not invented to be a bird deterrent, but it has become a main selling point for use at lake homes and cottages. I’m told that a few golf courses have installed Dori Poles strategically behind ponds, etc. (but hopefully away from the normal line of play -“normal” for me covers all of the course, nearby woods, parking lots and nearby tennis courts…).
We do know, however, that a gentle wind is also required for the effect to work. That is, at least three mile per hour breeze will do the trick. A lake friend of ours installed three poles with bright red pennants and immediately sent me an iPhone photo showing a gaggle of geese grazing gentle under the three poles shown on an absolutely still day. No breeze. None. The accompanying text said: “They don’t work!” I texted back: “Take another pic tomorrow”. He did exactly that. The new photo had the pennants moving and geese nowhere in sight! So, yes a bit of a breeze, as is common almost all the time anywhere in the world, is a necessary component. And, we do know that water not only attracts birds, it also attracts breezes, thank goodness!
Roger
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Digital Design and Printing – The Perfect Storm for Over-Design
As an architect, I learned early on that too much design or “over-design” is often the easy way out. The really difficult solutions and, more often than not, the best designs are the result of meticulous and thoughtful efforts to simplify the end result to the barest and, hopefully, most elegant solutions. In my opinion, this generally applies to all forms of design: architecture, graphic design, industrial design and so on.
After 25 years experience with our Kalamazoo Banner Works line of vertical street pole banners we've seen about every possible graphic design format possible for a vertical piece of fabric 30" wide by 94" long (our largest typical size) - from refined, effective and striking to graphics of mass confusion that are virtually unreadable. And, it seems, the confusing ones are becoming more common.
Let me explain. These banners are the ones that you see mounted on city light poles, among other places, that more and more cities install to show “pride of place”, announce events and celebrate holidays. When we began designing, manufacturing and marketing these types of banners back in 1983, it was and still is our goal to have the banners, which we design, be simple, bold, readable and pleasing to the eye. What we try to avoid is a look that might remind one of the typical "billboard" similar to what you see on the side of major highways where there is plenty of space to say more than you need to know. Urban light pole banners are best when the design is simpler, bolder and more striking and, I feel, should provide color and interest and enough information to make someone want to know more. We don’t look at the banner as the only element to a program’s communication needs. This just is not the medium for “everything you need to know”. There plainly is not room on a narrow banner nor is too much copy nor are complex photo images easy to read or understand when driving by at 30-plus miles per hour.
Through the years, our clients have tended to agree with our concept as their primary goal is to "dress up" their streets and venues and provide color and the type of design that would be more appropriate in the typical urban setting. This look for which we strive might be described as a sort of anti-billboard (of course, I understand that I may be accused of arbitrarily condemning all billboards, when some may be deemed acceptible) and as soon as it looks like a particular design might be approaching the billboard look we caution the client and present our advice to simplify, if possible.
Our "purist" approach, I believe, had initially helped to make the idea of urban street graphics palatable and popular. The challenge right now, however, with the amazing capabilities provided by digital design and digital printing, has provided designers the “perfect storm” for overdesign. It’s just too easy nowadays to throw images together and shade and screen and half-tone and impose image on image until every trick in the book appears on the banner concept. The end result is often unreadable and difficult to understand. I firmly believe that one of the most significant reasons that urban street banners became accepted by city planners and marketers was their inherent simplicity. This simplicity occured somewhat naturally because the only methods of manufacturing them were via screen printing and appliqué. These methods, back in 1970 to 2000, were either the only reasonable way to construct the banners or were certainly the most cost effective. Digital printing of banners did not become cost effective until after 2000. That’s when designers began to feast on the wonders of digital tools and apply more design elements than are sometimes necessary.
So, my message here is the same one that architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe made popular: Less is More. Or, others might refer to it as K.I.S.S.
After 25 years experience with our Kalamazoo Banner Works line of vertical street pole banners we've seen about every possible graphic design format possible for a vertical piece of fabric 30" wide by 94" long (our largest typical size) - from refined, effective and striking to graphics of mass confusion that are virtually unreadable. And, it seems, the confusing ones are becoming more common.
Let me explain. These banners are the ones that you see mounted on city light poles, among other places, that more and more cities install to show “pride of place”, announce events and celebrate holidays. When we began designing, manufacturing and marketing these types of banners back in 1983, it was and still is our goal to have the banners, which we design, be simple, bold, readable and pleasing to the eye. What we try to avoid is a look that might remind one of the typical "billboard" similar to what you see on the side of major highways where there is plenty of space to say more than you need to know. Urban light pole banners are best when the design is simpler, bolder and more striking and, I feel, should provide color and interest and enough information to make someone want to know more. We don’t look at the banner as the only element to a program’s communication needs. This just is not the medium for “everything you need to know”. There plainly is not room on a narrow banner nor is too much copy nor are complex photo images easy to read or understand when driving by at 30-plus miles per hour.
Through the years, our clients have tended to agree with our concept as their primary goal is to "dress up" their streets and venues and provide color and the type of design that would be more appropriate in the typical urban setting. This look for which we strive might be described as a sort of anti-billboard (of course, I understand that I may be accused of arbitrarily condemning all billboards, when some may be deemed acceptible) and as soon as it looks like a particular design might be approaching the billboard look we caution the client and present our advice to simplify, if possible.
Our "purist" approach, I believe, had initially helped to make the idea of urban street graphics palatable and popular. The challenge right now, however, with the amazing capabilities provided by digital design and digital printing, has provided designers the “perfect storm” for overdesign. It’s just too easy nowadays to throw images together and shade and screen and half-tone and impose image on image until every trick in the book appears on the banner concept. The end result is often unreadable and difficult to understand. I firmly believe that one of the most significant reasons that urban street banners became accepted by city planners and marketers was their inherent simplicity. This simplicity occured somewhat naturally because the only methods of manufacturing them were via screen printing and appliqué. These methods, back in 1970 to 2000, were either the only reasonable way to construct the banners or were certainly the most cost effective. Digital printing of banners did not become cost effective until after 2000. That’s when designers began to feast on the wonders of digital tools and apply more design elements than are sometimes necessary.
So, my message here is the same one that architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe made popular: Less is More. Or, others might refer to it as K.I.S.S.
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