The familiar plastic, triangular billboards on top of taxi cabs, an icon of the bustling city, are about to disappear into the advertising archives. They are being updated with a sleek, thoughtful, new design by Simon Yan of BlueMap Design, an award-winning design firm in New York City. Working in collaboration with Show Media and DISTEC, BlueMap Design has packed advanced technology into the new billboard design to provide better image quality and at the same time, a more environmentally responsible advertising medium.
This new billboard enables:
- Advertisers to take advantage of crisper and flatter images
- Target audiences to see a clear, monitor-like image
- Cab-searching pedestrians to view a stronger, more legible availability status and medallion number
- Better fit, easier installation and lower maintenance on all taxi types and brands
Superior quality graphic output is the result of a new generation LED backlighting system which provides brighter light, lower energy consumption and the utilization of effective digital graphic reproduction processes. Harmonized Design/Engineering allows all generated light to be concentrated exclusively on advertising and functional communications. The result is a flat panel graphic illuminated with precision to focus the viewer on the graphic message rather than on the bleeding light glow currently found on current model taxi-tops.
The new taxi-top's aluminum frame size, shape and angle maximize billboard space and pedestrian viewing, providing advertisers greater visibility and effectiveness for their money. It's quite a contrast to the convex, bulging, bloated, yellowed and non-recyclable plastic billboards currently in use. The stronger aluminum frame easily withstands the coldest winter nights and the hottest summer days that in the past, resulted in many units bound for a landfill.
Designed to fit easily and install quickly on all vehicle roof lines -- without the exposed fastening screws and rubber skirts of previous models -- this taxi top billboard has fewer parts and weighs 30% less than the previous model, thanks to the use of recycled and recyclable aluminum and plastic materials. This translates to improved fuel, material and labor economies. The narrower frontal profile of the design integrates Billboard, Medallion and Duty Status communication into one unit, reducing aerodynamic drag/wind resistance, fuel costs, and production logistics.
Perhaps less obvious than other benefits, but equally important, is that this unit has lower EMI emissions, reducing radio interference, and may even prove to increase your iPhone signal while riding in a cab. Through their approach, blueMap has done a thorough job in harnessing the functional and rational factors of the taxi-top into a contemporary and effective design that's on top in more ways than one.
Within the coming months Show Media's new taxi-top will begin to appear on the urban landscape throughout New York City, gracing all sorts of existing and forthcoming new cabs.