Autumn 2001

Inspiration

Imitation subway notices by True

The one piece of graphic design that truly influenced me was a campaign by a New York designer, illustrator and artist who calls himself True.

It is a project that took place within the New York subway. As in all public transport systems there is a whole slew of offical signs and stickers to tell you what you should do and not do. True printed up a range of additional stickers imitating the look of the offical ones but designed his rather more philosophical in content.

The reason they hit me was their placing: riding in a train, staring in the air, being bored, looking but not reading a directional signs, slowly realising the message being a different one, enjoying the content, happily anticipating others. I could have come up with an idea like that but I would have made the content cynical, critical or Guilliani of the Transit Authority. Its True\'s gift to have opted for unfashionable optimism.

He met every Wednesday at midnight with fifteen to twenty friends at the same subway stop and they divided up the different subway lines among them. One group would do the A line, another the F and so on.

He also equipped all of his helpers with fake tranist authority I.D.s and even made up fake authorisation letters so his friends would not get arrested.

First published in Eye no. 41 vol. 11, 2001