Designing Posters Towards a Seamless Integration in Urban Surroundings: A Computational Approach

Posters have always played a key role in the living fabric of our societies. They are the most noticeable form of communication in urban settings, wielding great influence in the interpretation and perception of a place by passers-by. Seeking for a poster that seamlessly integrates into the urban environment, we developed an interactive installation that employs a computational approach to design posters. The installation generates poster designs according to the feedback that it gathers from the surrounding environment. This way, it designs posters for the site where it settled and, at the same time, according to the data gathered from the environment near it. In this process, it uses computer vision techniques and contextual-aware data to read the environmental conditions. Also, we give it the capability of evaluating the generated outputs and learning through its previous experiences. In this sense, the installation system, over time, begins to understand which the best way is to design in line with the data that it gathers from the environment. We set up the installation into Coimbra's historic centre, for four weeks, to perceive its behaviour. Furthermore, we conducted testing sessions with users to assess the outputs generated.