Ever since they first started popping up on downtown San Diego street corners, I have been extremely intrigued by "sign spinning." Started (at least in San Diego) by a local entrepreneur who created Arrow Advertising, sign spinning has become one of the fastest-growing advertising methods in urban environments. The idea is simple, really. A typical billboard-like advertisement is created as a lightweight, arrow-shaped sign, which a "sign spinner" twirls and spins in order to attract the attention of consumers. 'Nuff said.
This interest motivated me to create a (very) short documentary about a few San Diego sign spinners. Check it out below.
I believe that there is a fundamental connection between this new form of advertising, and the continuing growth of hip-hop culture. All good sign spinners possess a certain rhythm and time in their movements (listening to music while spinning is popular for this reason). In this fashion, the act of sign spinning becomes more than just shameless advertising, and begins to approach musical performance.
In addition, hip-hop culture encourages the notion of "free styling." While beginners usually stick to a routine of a handful of tricks, the majority of sign spinners showcase great spontaneity and a wide variety of spinning tricks.
I want to extrapolate this documentary further by interviewing more sign spinners and the creator of Arrow Advertising. More importantly, I think, would be to drop in and document one of their practices, to see the sign spinning community in action.
More information to come...
3 comments:
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I'd love to see the art form acknowledged in pay scales -- that more skilled/talented sign twirlers are paid higher rates for their artistry (or at least booked more often, since talent is rarely recognized by pay).
Actually, that is the system that most sign spinning companies use! As Anthony May explains in the video, each new trick that each sign spinner learns adds $.10 to their hourly wage. Pretty sweet, huh?
Hrm, I don't think that's a standard across the industry, though. My kid brother was a sign twirler for a summer, and he did not get paid more for learning new tricks.