C.A.S.E. is a corporate identity as well as a corporate social responsibility vehicle for the Costa Rican based outdoor advertisement firm Colorvision.
C.A.S.E. stands for commercial, architectural, social and environmental components to be developed in the operational scheme of the company; we specifically defined:
(1) Competitiveness: all proposed activities aim at strengthening the competitiveness of the company and to distinguish their products from existing pirate structures that augment the “visual pollution” created, amongst others, by the existing legal and illegal structures of outdoor advertisement. In recent years, those structures have created an undesired visual dominion over the urban landscape. They are considered an obstacle by many, resulting in a recent call for a complete abandonment of this economically viable, but visually disturbing economy. Our consultancy shows that another way is possible, it shows how to integrate instead of dissolving the business, how to create a broader value for the image of the city at large and the use of the individual objects in particular. It includes various proposals or “visual solutions” to incorporate commercial information in the urban architecture and landscape in combination with newly designed carriers of information and messages.
(2) Improved designs: a visionary proposal for an associative billboard design to be applied throughout the firm's main markets in Central America. This part of the works is co-commissioned by three competitive firms in order to create an agreement on the basic dimensions and proportions that are shared and applied by the different service providers and stakeholders in order to distinguish their products from their illegal competitors. The family of newly designed objects unites different functions besides the display of commercial, social or cultural messages, such as outdoor furniture components or information regarding the specific location of the individual structures (i.e. tourist maps, street names or calendars of cultural activities). Additional GPS supported functions for traffic control and an improved LED display of the messages according to actual traffic flows generate a new type of object named I Board. A generic design toolbox that uses shipping containers as a base has been developed in the T.B.C. project. Site specific studies for a better integration of message boards with their urban and architectural surroundings have been developed for representative urban locations, such as the Billboard Building or the Plaza Liceo Luis Dobles Segreda.
(3) Social benefits: corporate social responsibility refers to the responsibility of a company regarding the impacts of its decisions and activities in society and the environment. It requires transparency and ethical behavior at all levels of the company aimed at the wellbeing and sustainable development of all stakeholders (within and outside the company). On the one hand, a certain proportion of the available billboards throughout the city is reprogrammed for cultural, social and personalized messages that can be sent to the company via e mail or SMS, resulting in an interactive digitalized or printed graffiti. On the other hand, vulnerable groups are recruited to produce recycled products from printed vinyl, which still is the main technique to display messages on the boards.
(4) Recycling activities: we developed a series of second life options for the different types of garbage that are produced by outdoor advertisement; mostly considering the vinyl on which the commercial, social and cultural messages are printed. Some of the product ideas were developed in a series of workshops with students at the Veritas University in San Jose, Costa Rica, including hand- or surf-, or farm bags, biodigestors, truck canvases, roofing for low cost or emergency housing modules, and tents. The products are produced by and for the benefit of vulnerable groups in Costa Rica; the overall product series is labeled Re-Creo.
Together with these four main activities; we designed a logo to represent the companies' interests on its main markets in Central America. The iconographic barcode is generated through the colors of the seven Central American countries’ flags.
Credit
A Company (Oliver Schütte, Marije van Lidth de Jeude, and Laura Jimenez) with project specific support.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 2008-2010.