Union Square

Savannah Armer

October 29, 2012

Signage

Stacy Asher

Union Square Thought Paper

San Francisco is full of surprises around every counter. Each district having such individual character that it seems like you are in a different place. Tourists are wowed everyday by the magic of the downtown area. Constant signage confronting them everywhere they look with beautiful lights shining in their eyes. The purpose of the signage in Union Square is to advertise brands and create a shopping “utopia”.

Union square brings the clash of two different cultural areas in downtown San Francisco. Union Square is in the center of downtown, next to Chinatown and SOMA.  It is a fashion capital of the world boasting hundreds of different clothing stores, premier restaurants, and the historical side of San Francisco with the cable cars. Union square is glamorous, having stores from H and M, all the way to Gucci. It is an area full of money constantly being spent on material objects, but walk one or two blocks down and your reality would change completely. The Tenderloin is a San Francisco’s ghetto persay, the buildings are falling apart, there is homelessness everywhere, and there is constant of drug abuse. The signage in the Tenderloin is usually poor, falling apart or fading away. Due to the Tenderloin’s lack signage, it was never defined as a “place” as much as it was defined just as a space.

Companies use pathos based advertisements to get society to spend more money, or to feel as if they are not complete without material things. In the window of Forever 21, there is the phase “Fall is Femme” in graffari like writing. The store is trying to convey the idea that in order to be femme for the fall time you have to go buy their clothing products. It is attempting to create a emotional dilemma with the audience, so they consider it a need. Again in Union Square, there was chalk art being done in the center of the square. It was a bottle of perfume with the brand “Estee Lauder” surrounded in flowers. At the bottom of the art was something not only to invoke a emotional response but also for them to advertise more. The phase at the bottom is “#mysimplepleasures”. The hashtag is a reference to the website twitter, and if enough people do the hashtag, the company gets more publicity. Also when did makeup become pleasuring? The company is trying to make it seem as if these items/products we get from them, actually do something for us emotionally. It is a way of sneaking into the subconscious of the costumer and getting them to spend more than they would otherwise.