Image via here
Ghost Bikes are a grass roots campaign to memorialize cyclists killed in New York City's traffic. The image above is from DKNY (A clothing company.) and another link here talks about Macy's (A department store) Valentine and Spring campaigns.
Both use similar images, specifically that of monochromatic bikes being used to promote specific events. The same types of monochromatic bikes sprinkled throughout New York, used by Ghost Bikes, to remind everyone of the loss of life.
So first, let me say that I mostly agree with Darryl Ohrt, from the blog Brandflakes for Breakfast, Any designer has to perform due diligence. Meaning that if you put an image out there for public consumption, that you should understand what the image actually means. Be it from history or pop culture.
But I guess my bigger question is, if you didn’t know about Ghost Bikes. If you had no point of reference to begin with, what would a monochromatic bike say to you? If you look at the display for Macy’s, well no offense to Macy’s, but I find it kind of boring. Looking at the DKNY bikes, it doesn’t really tell me what they are trying to sale me, and I’m not interested in the bike enough to want and try to find out.
Because, to be fair to both companies, I don’t think it is completely invalid to re- appropriate an image, even one with a negative connotation. As long as the team putting it together understands what they are using. My bigger issue is that without knowing about Ghost Bikes, both campaigns still leave me not that interested. And I think that is just as much of a crime here as the use of the inappropriate images.
play well
Clovis
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