For just a split-second as you zoom by in your vehicle, you’ll catch the perfect alignment of 2D imagery on a billboard and the real, three-dimensional mountains in the background, eliminating advertising to refocus your attention on what’s really important. Set along Gene Autry Trail in California as part of Desert X, an outdoor exhibition of site-specific art installed across the Coachella Valley, the billboard series by Jennifer Bolande demonstrates an unusual form of camouflage.

The installation is particularly effective for the close placement of the billboards, which are glimpsed in quick succession. Real and artificial environments blend together in an illusion that’s particularly effective on a bright, sunny afternoon when the sky is at its bluest. The work is specifically made to be experienced from a passing car, drawing inspiration from an old Burma Shave ad that used sequential placement to create a message that could only be read from a moving vehicle.

‘Visible Distance/Second Sight’ is particularly effective in this desert environment, where most structures are low-lying and there are no towering trees. This setting ordinarily makes billboards pop out from the landscape even more than they would in a city.

Other striking installations in the Desert X series include ‘The Circle of Land and Sky’ by Phillip K. Smith III, a composition of 300 geometric reflectors angled at 10 degrees to engage with the surrounding Sonoran Desert, and ‘Curves and Zigzags’ by Claudia Comte, a series of scuptural freestanding walls.

All photos by Lance Gerber Studio

Litterbugs usually like to keep their polluting crimes a dirty little secret – but Hong Kong Cleanup wanted to show them that there is no way to hide from the all-seeing eyes of technology. They created an environmental campaign called “The Faces of Litter” which used DNA phenotyping to create portraits of people who littered.

The rather Orwellian campaign illustrated garbage police collecting refuse with traces of DNA from around Hong Kong. In the campaign video, cigarette butts, coffee cups, and even a used condom were picked up and taken to a lab for analysis.

Once the DNA had been isolated, scientists used a program called Snapshot DNA Phenotyping to create a realistic 3D image of the litterbug. These faces could then be displayed in public places as a shame campaign to deter future littering.

The technology involved in this concept is indeed available, but The Faces of Litter was only an awareness-raising campaign. Photos were indeed displayed at Hong Kong transit stations, but they weren’t of real criminals – the faces were created using the DNA of volunteers.

The Hong Kong Cleanup project highlights the fact that littering is out of control in Hong Kong despite fines equivalent to $200 US. The video warns would-be trash droppers: “Don’t let it be your face,” hopefully inspiring them to think twice before flicking a cigarette butt or flinging an empty coffee cup.

Tokyo seems inseparable from the banners, billboards, logos, slogans and other flashy neon alerts, except when seen through the lens of this French graphic designer in a startling black-and-white image series turned into a alternating GIFs.

Tokyo No Ads by Nicolas Damiens illustrates just how shocking the contrast is, particularly when switching back and forth between before and after versions. Each of the seven scenes here was meticulously edited with attention to every last pixel of graphics.

To outsiders, Japan’s capital is nearly synonymous with signage saturation, so stripping them away changes the character of the place dramatically. Promoting everything from TV shows and movies to local shops and businesses, it is almost impossible to find a place in the city not showered in advertising. Perhaps the biggest surprise: the landscape almost looks more alien without its characteristic adverts.

Billboard-sized paint jobs on buildings that have seen better days give passersby a glimpse of how much fresher and brighter the structure could look with a little care – the ideal advertisement for paint company OBI. They may be promoting a product, but these miniature renovations get their message across by proving what the product can do rather than just plastering photos of it on ugly billboards.

The campaign by Hamburg-based agency Jung Von Matt came about as a result of price wars between independent stores in Germany, causing a sudden increase in unsightly billboards all over the country. OBI, the largest DIY store in Germany, asked “Why do people advertise products that are supposed to make our homes look nicer using adverts that make everything look uglier?”

It’s a refreshing twist on the usual public advertisement, using the old show-don’t-tell method. In some cases, just half a window is included in the re-paint, making it glaringly obvious how much newer and more cheerful the building would look if the whole thing received the same treatment.

These days, as we collectively develop blinders that make conventional ads in public spaces virtually invisible, marketers have to get a lot more creative to be noticed. Check out 300+ shocking, brilliant and unmissable ad campaigns that force us to sit up and pay attention.

Advertising is so ubiquitous that billboards aren’t even restricted to fixed positions anymore; they’re often found moving from one spot to another on trailers, always in search of those all-important eyeballs. Inside these trailers are little spaces that, one would imagine, are too small to be of any real use. But Belgian artist and hacktivist Karl Philips has taken some practical function from these ugly urban fixtures by turning them into tiny ‘parasite apartments.’

The series, entitled ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,’ consists of three billboard trailers which have been hacked into living spaces just the right size for a single-person mattress and a small collection of possessions.

Billboards take up a considerable amount of space, and it can be argued that most of them don’t have a positive impact on society. By turning them into houses, the revenue from the ads goes to the people who live within.

According to Philips’ biography, he is particularly interested in the margins of society, focusing on “themes such as gaps in legal, economic and social systems, the omnipresence of advertisement, unrestrained capitalism and consumerism, etc.” His previous work includes a parasite apartment built onto the back of a conventional billboard, invisible from the street.