Nick Mendola—a friend and constant collaborator of mine—had an idea to try and drive funds into the local, Mom-and-Pop businesses of the Western New York region. He was looking to make the city’s restaurants commodities unto themselves by creating a campaign to help push them into the public’s consciousness so entrenched in the allure of national franchises.
After hearing his pitch of ideas to give price tags to the city, I came up with an alternative that would actually make the city the price. Using the concept of a barcode, I cut up silhouettes of iconic Buffalo, NY buildings like the HSBC tower, City Hall, and the Liberty Buildings to make up the monetarily stamped stripes of code. Using Nick’s “Buy Buffalo” moniker and some color to help differentiate the architecture from one another, the logo was ready to be put on shirts so the word could be spread.
Sadly, the idea never went past the conceptual stage as ideas of a website map depicting participating stores never came to fruition. All that remains is the finished design and the cool, local initiative at its back.