Students Design Billboards to Encourage People to Vote

Some students from the School of Journalism and Electronic Media are urging people to get out and vote in a big way.

Their messages are on billboards around the Knoxville area.

Rob Heller, a JEM professor in the College of Communication and Information, asked his media graphics students to design posters encouraging people to vote in the upcoming election.

“I asked them to create something nonpartisan and use only three words-one of which must be a version of the word ‘vote,’̍” Heller said. “They could use only type. No pictures. And it had to be black and white, with more than one additional color.”

Among the messages the students came up with: Veni (I came), Vidi (I saw), Voti (I voted); Use Your Vote; Did You Vote? (with a yes box checked); Decide, Vote, Elect; and Exercise Voting Rights.

The Sun Times is reporting that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is proposing a four year extension  of a 20-year billboard agreement in his 2017 budget.

The original agreement called for JCDecaux, partnering with Interstate Outdoor Advertising, to put up 34 digital signs on city property adjacent to the Kennedy, Dan Ryan, Stevenson and Eisenhower expressways and the Chicago Skyway and Illinois Tollway.

In exchange, the two billboard operators guaranteed Chicago taxpayers $15 million in 2013 and $154 million over the 20-year life of the contract.

Adams Outdoor Advertising and the Mint Museum Uptown present “Outdoor Is In,” a free fashion exhibit Oct. 19-30 on Level 5 of the Mint.

The pop-up exhibit features 19 dresses constructed from recycled and re-imagined vinyl billboards (one from the Mint, as well as 15 other organizations).

“When we heard about the Mint’s celebration of the Year of the Woman, we recognized immediately that our first-of-its-kind project would be a perfect fit with the theme since the artists and designers who created the incredible dresses are all women,” Adams Outdoor Advertising’s Jeannine Dodson said.

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 In the costly, media-saturated, hyper-social US election, candidates and causes are breaking through the noise with billboards.

Regardless of party or ideology, billboards deliver what political advertising craves: attention.

One clever billboard can generate global buzz.

Who is T-Rex?  T-Rex Property AB was founded in 2003 by Mats Hylin, Mats Dahlgren and Fredrik Persson.  The company acquired 12 patents for outdoor advertising products.T-Rex Property AB has been suing outdoor companies who use a computer to control digital signs.  T-Rex owns US Patent Number RE39,470 titled Digital Information System and that the patent relates to the use of a computer to remotely control electronic devices including digital signs.

Who Has T-Rex Sued? Since 2012 T-Rex Property AB has filed 59 lawsuits relating to patent infringement.   T-Rex started out suing outdoor advertising companies which operated large digital billboards.  T-Rex has expanded lawsuits to include Cinemark and AMC (which run advertising on movie theater screens) as well as the owners of digital sign networks in shopping malls and health clubs,   You can see a list of the lawsuits here.