Maybe I’ve been cooped up in the bubble for too long, but it seems that OTR has been delivering its olfactory pleasures with surprising ferocity as of late. As the neighborhood condo tour gets underway this afternoon, I wonder if my potential neighbors will notice. If they do, will they be charmed or repulsed?
As for the graffito above and its many candy-colored brethren that mark OTR’s sidewalks like typographic territorial pissing, should I be annoyed that this is left over from the last condo tour, earlier in the year? Or, as a designer with a keen appreciation of Modernism, should I be impressed with the cunning economy of branding a neighborhood once for all the future condo tours?
I’m not sure, and I’m not very invested either way. To the person who made this mark, I can say this: your lettering can use some refinement, your colors are ugly, and you have poor can control.
Department of Everyday Visualingual 
I’m not a fan of the Q’s spray painted on the sidewalks. Instead of visually telling people that they’re in the Gateway Quarter, let the area speak for itself and let the people decide whether or not it feels like its own special place.
I never thought of it as branding so much as dumbed down route-finding like sprayed arrows at road races. Curious that it is in permanent paint.
I see it as both branding and wayfinding. But, unlike the Q-emblazoned balloons, these stencils stick around after the event. I’m guessing that someone screwed up earlier this year and accidentally used permanent spray paint, because the stencils from last year’s tour were temporary and are long gone. Still, the effect is obnoxious.
I finally got into the 14th and Vine condo’s yesterday. After seeing Monttani and Lackman lofts earlier in the summer I had high expectations.
I was really disappointed in the finishes.
The spaces were cool, but the finishes, uninspiring.