Jon Gill has, by his own admission, a bit of an obsession. Fly Posters. Those little bits of information design normally posted illegally on any available city centre space before being removed and disposed of by the council.
It was during a trip through the centre of town when Jon came across some building work where partitions were erected to filter the shoppers into a bottleneck that led him to his idea. Wouldn’t it be great to use this space as a free gallery for art and design that the whole public could appreciate.
This was a few years ago and at that time Jon used his idea as the basis of a project but never took it any further. It wasn’t until last year when he heard about the NEoN Digital Arts festival in Dundee that Jon resurrected the idea and did some exploration.
He discovered that in Dundee fly postering is legal, sort of. There are designated permanent fly postering spaces and when ever there is building work being carried out there are temporary spaces erected on the protective partitions put up by the builders. These spaces are run by a small company, Street Advertising Services, who rent them out at affordable prices to people that have something to say.
Jon got in touch with the company and presented them a simple proposition. They have spaces for rent that sometimes sit empty. He would run a competition to have artists submit designs and Street Advertising would sponsor the print and allow him to use the spaces. That way they get advertising and he gets his public gallery that he would use to showcase emerging creative talent.
So, thats what happened, last year in October/November the first Superfly exhibition that contained artwork from 7 artists from all corners of the UK went up around the streets of Dundee and was by all accounts a rather good success. Jon even made it onto the news.
Now with Central Station in Dundee Jon has had a chance to use more of the artwork he was sent and create a new set of posters that have brightened up the streets of Dundee again in the run up to yesterdays event. This time he has created some miniature packs containing each of the designs which people can buy to brighten up there own walls.
You can find out more about the designs that Jon chose for Superfly and for the Central Station Dundee Pop-up over at his website.
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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs from the day, click here.
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