Perhaps you have lived in an apartment or stayed in a motel and outside your window you find yourself staring into a huge billboard or some flashing neon sign. Instead of gazing out at the branches of a lovely tree or viewing a charming sidewalk you are visually blindsided by this type of pollution.
Many large cities in fact, the 5th largest city in the world, Sao Paulo, Brazil have banned billboards and restricted signage. These city founders and managers realize how much visual pollution affects our daily life. Like air pollution and sound pollution, visual pollution is invasive and infects our space and privacy.
If you live in a city that has not yet adopted a visual pollution iniative there are ways that you can help to curtail the effects from the windows of your home. If for example, you have a sign outside of your kitchen window you might consider a curtain, shudders, or blinds. All three options can be designed to allow light to enter and at the same time eliminate the full effect of the visual pollution. Some windows might be well suited for a different type of glass for example, either an opaque style that blurs the image on the other side or even a stained glass window might be suitable for certain areas.
If curtains or changing the window itself are not appealing than adding plant life and greenery can help to soften an unsightly view. Design is often about the art of distraction. Interior design is similar to clothing design. The idea is to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Many heavier people choose black clothing as a means to create the illusion of a more svelte figure. So too with design you can focus the eye away from an area that lacks any interest or in fact, an area that needs distracting from unsightly aesthetic situations. In this way you are able to create the environment that you desire within your home and keep the visual pollution outside of your view. Until all cities adopt visual pollution restraints then creativity is required to offset that intrusion.
