February 22, 2012

trainspotting

A couple of weeks holidaying in Victoria, and I’ve come up with a new idea for advertising space, using a method first created in the early 1800s.

This old invention, if you’re wondering, is called a Phenakistoscope, better known as an Animation Wheel. It creates a full animation using just paper, ink and something that makes it go round and round.

Phenakistoscopes consist of a cylinder of paper, large in diameter with narrow vertical slots spaced evenly through the sides of the cylinder. The cylinder is placed on a spindle so that it can rotate, and the viewer can watch a full animation from the outside of the cylinder, by looking through the vertical slots as the cylinder spins.

Inside the cylinder are images between the gaps of each vertical slot. Due to the narrow field of vision the viewer receives from outside the cylinder, and the speed at which the cylinder rotates, we only see each image inside the cylinder for a microsecond, allowing our eyes to trick us into an animated figure, perhaps dancing on the inside of the cylinder.

Whilst riding a particular Melbourne Metro train, bored out of my brain, I noticed that when another train passed the brief time your eyes are able to process what they see of the train as it passes by quickly achieves an effect similar to that of the Phenakistoscope.

The Metro logo that appears on their trains is placed in the gaps between each set of windows and seems to flitter as it appears and disappears constantly between the vertical viewing slots (the train windows).

So why not make this logo dance? Why not ADVERTISE?

The space created by a full-length passenger train is greater than any billboard space. And while it’s not as smooth and straightforward to utilise, there could still be the opportunity to create animated advertising on this form of infrastructure.

The small area between each window could be one slide of animation, leading onto the next, of say, a popular sports figure downing the latest sports drink, then at the end of the train where there is a greater area for canvassing, the “end” of the ad (a still image) could also be viewed easily from those waiting at the train station while the train is stationary.

For the brief period train-goers look up from their ipads and ebook readers, they may, in seconds, receive subliminal advertising, and purchase the product advertised to them without even knowing!

Who knows, we may soon have to go trainspotting for our future infrastructural-advertising opportunities.