Dunkin Donuts – Don’t Swallow the Aesthetic Degradation
Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead baffles me most of the time--which is what I enjoy about it--but I got Zippy’s point last month in a strip about Dunkin' Donuts. Zippy commented on the “horrific orange and hot pink logo,” put a donut in his mouth, and, in the final panel, said, “I’ll eat th’ donut, but I don’t have to swallow th’ aesthetic degradation!”
While Starbucks’ exteriors tend to uphold or blend into neighborhood character, Dunkin' Donuts veer towards, as Zippy put it, the horrific. At least, that was my feeling when the new store appeared at the corner of 1st Avenue and 83rd Street last fall.
And, according to a January 16 article in the Times, the look of Yorkville's newest donut shop will be replicated throughout the city. Dunkin Donuts is planning a total of 200 shops in Manhattan. A spokesman stated that the company prefers corner locations “with good viewpoints” for pedestrians to see signs from a long way off.
The new Yorkville store is located on a typical block with a hodgepodge of businesses including a bodega, barber shop, pizza place, cabinet shop, and local bar. True to the Times article, Dunkin' Donuts was not satisfied with having a highly visible corner location. To maximize attention, a plastic, awning-type attachment was built along both street frontages, topped with an attention-grabbing take-out cup. The attachment is filled with lighting tubes so that the whole thing functions as an internally lit sign.
When Zippy identified Dunkin' Donuts’ “orange and hot pink” stripes as being a company logo, he was correct, since the company color scheme is advertised widely as a visual tie-in to the brand. The attachment is made of these logo colors, which means the entire structure functions primarily as signage and only secondarily as an awning. It is also designed to direct light down to the sidewalk, thereby putting the Dunkin' Donuts glow to the entire street corner--visible “from a long way off."
The Times articles reported that signage for the Dunkin' Donuts’ shops currently in the city were granted city permits. If this is the case, from what I was able to learn from the City's online resources, the Planning Department was not following the City's regulations in the case of the Yorkville outlet.
The zoning map indicates that the store is in the C1 district. In this district, corner buildings are never allowed to have more than 50 square feet of illuminated signage for each street. I don’t know the actual measurements of the illuminated sign attachment, but my guess is that the square-footage is more-or-less 75 square feet facing 1st Ave and 125 square feet on 83rd St. This would mean Dunkin Donuts’ exceeds the illuminated signage code on 1st Ave. by perhaps as much as 50 percent, and on 83rd St. by as much as 150 percent.
One of the critical factors about street signage is that its effectiveness is primarily an issue of relativity: smaller signs can work well for a business if the surrounding signs are of a similar size and placement. In places where large signs tend to dominate, smaller signs won’t do the job anymore. As long as everyone follows the same rules, everyone has a better opportunity to be noticed.
The city’s zoning code regulates the size and placement of signs with the idea that less can accomplish more. It seemed clear to me that the code was designed to help preserve New York’s visual ambience from overreaching advertisements. Dunkin' Donuts might want signage that is visible from a long way off–so do a lot of businesses—but New York can stick with Zippy the Pinhead on this one and refuse to swallow the aesthetic degradation.
While Starbucks’ exteriors tend to uphold or blend into neighborhood character, Dunkin' Donuts veer towards, as Zippy put it, the horrific. At least, that was my feeling when the new store appeared at the corner of 1st Avenue and 83rd Street last fall.
And, according to a January 16 article in the Times, the look of Yorkville's newest donut shop will be replicated throughout the city. Dunkin Donuts is planning a total of 200 shops in Manhattan. A spokesman stated that the company prefers corner locations “with good viewpoints” for pedestrians to see signs from a long way off.
The new Yorkville store is located on a typical block with a hodgepodge of businesses including a bodega, barber shop, pizza place, cabinet shop, and local bar. True to the Times article, Dunkin' Donuts was not satisfied with having a highly visible corner location. To maximize attention, a plastic, awning-type attachment was built along both street frontages, topped with an attention-grabbing take-out cup. The attachment is filled with lighting tubes so that the whole thing functions as an internally lit sign.
When Zippy identified Dunkin' Donuts’ “orange and hot pink” stripes as being a company logo, he was correct, since the company color scheme is advertised widely as a visual tie-in to the brand. The attachment is made of these logo colors, which means the entire structure functions primarily as signage and only secondarily as an awning. It is also designed to direct light down to the sidewalk, thereby putting the Dunkin' Donuts glow to the entire street corner--visible “from a long way off."
The Times articles reported that signage for the Dunkin' Donuts’ shops currently in the city were granted city permits. If this is the case, from what I was able to learn from the City's online resources, the Planning Department was not following the City's regulations in the case of the Yorkville outlet.
The zoning map indicates that the store is in the C1 district. In this district, corner buildings are never allowed to have more than 50 square feet of illuminated signage for each street. I don’t know the actual measurements of the illuminated sign attachment, but my guess is that the square-footage is more-or-less 75 square feet facing 1st Ave and 125 square feet on 83rd St. This would mean Dunkin Donuts’ exceeds the illuminated signage code on 1st Ave. by perhaps as much as 50 percent, and on 83rd St. by as much as 150 percent.
One of the critical factors about street signage is that its effectiveness is primarily an issue of relativity: smaller signs can work well for a business if the surrounding signs are of a similar size and placement. In places where large signs tend to dominate, smaller signs won’t do the job anymore. As long as everyone follows the same rules, everyone has a better opportunity to be noticed.
The city’s zoning code regulates the size and placement of signs with the idea that less can accomplish more. It seemed clear to me that the code was designed to help preserve New York’s visual ambience from overreaching advertisements. Dunkin' Donuts might want signage that is visible from a long way off–so do a lot of businesses—but New York can stick with Zippy the Pinhead on this one and refuse to swallow the aesthetic degradation.
posted by Paul Cogley at 5:45 PM
1 Comments:
Have you seen the movie "Rivers and Tides"? yet. Since you are developing an interest and appreciation for large outdoor art pieces, you might enjoy the pieces and works of Andy Goldsworthy. Several of his pieces are moving and thought provoking, others are incrediblely imaginative and delicately interesting. The movie is shown now and then at the Roxie here in San Francisco, and I recently bought the DVD to give to a young man who was always creatively artistic in his "experimentations" around our house while growing up. While I have not actually experienced a live piece of Andy's, I certainly intend to do so if the opportunity ever arises. I, too, missed the Christo piece when it was in Northern California.
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