Advertising signboard is a medium that is convenient to deliver
commercial information, inexpensive to make, and remarkably
effective in advertisement. As commercial aspects of advertising
signboard are overemphasized, most advertising signboards arou...
Advertising signboard is a medium that is convenient to deliver
commercial information, inexpensive to make, and remarkably
effective in advertisement. As commercial aspects of advertising
signboard are overemphasized, most advertising signboards around
us are not equipped with functionality of an information messenger,
which is the most important characteristic of an advertising
signboard. Responding to the current condition, there have been
several attempts to improve the visual environments recently, but
no substantial progress has been made yet. This research has been
initiated with the assumption that the failure is mainly caused by
the lack of studies on signboard recognition focused on the visual
characteristics of an observer to receive information.
The objectives of this research is to analyze the degree of
recognition of advertising signboards attached to buildings and to
suggest urban design guidelines to improve recognition of
advertising signboard on buildings.
In the course of the research, firstly, a preliminary review on the factors as well as related theories were made. In addition, an
examination on domestic laws regarding outdoor advertising
signboards has been attempted to find problems.
Secondly, case studies of both Korean(mainly Seoul) and
foreign countries has been made with an emphasis on the signboard
regulation system. I drew several implications from foreign case
studies that could be applied as guidelines for urban design.
Lastly, I carried out a computer simulation experiment by
modifying advertising signboard attached to buildings to analyze the
degree of recognition according to their size and proportion to the
outer wall of the buildings. The purpose of the experiment is to
clarify the direction to improve the recognition of advertising
signboard.
The conclusions drawn from the research are as follows.
First, the fewer the advertising signboards are attached to a
building, the better they are recognized. As confirmed in the
experiment about the change in the degree of recognition according
to the number of outdoor advertising signboard on a building, the
degree of recognition is around 96% when the number of outdoor
advertising signboard is 5, and it falls down significantly to less
than 10% when the number increases to more than 25. In addition,
it is proved that the smaller the proportion of the advertising
signboard to the outer wall of a building is, the better it is
recognized. These results imply that the regulation on the number
of advertising signboards on a building should be based on the size
of the outer wall, rather than the number of business firms in the
building.
Second, it appears that the degree of recognition is higher when
the size of advertising signboard are uniform and arranged on a base line rather than when their sizes are multiform. In case the
size of outdoor advertising signboards are multiform, the bigger
ones attract more attentions than the smaller ones, and accordingly
the advertisers may compete to enlarge their advertising
signboards. Standardizing the size of outdoor advertising signboards
will prevent the problem and allow observers to find the right
information they are looking for.
The results of this research were drawn from the experiment
with a limited number of subjects. It also did not consider other
characteristics of outdoor advertising signboards except their size
and proportion to the outer wall. Nevertheless, we expect that the
results of this study on the degree of recognition would provide
useful information to improve the streetscape and design of outdoor
advertising signboards.