Everything is a blur; intentionally

During a late night stroll in Ajaccio I walked past a shopping window; the store was closed, but in the window were multiple abstract posters that grabbed my attention.

When walking past the store, I wasn’t instantly clear to me what I was looking at. I noticed a heavy blurred image and some sharp white figurative shapes on top of it. I really liked the image because the abstract shape contrasted the blurry image; it felt calm and decorative and it was something I didn’t expect in a shopping window. The images almost felt like pieces of art.

When moving a little bit further I noticed that the shop was an optician and that explained the abstract shape in the works of art; they were glasses. The store itself had a number of frames highlighted and they looked quite “designey” and that matched the abstract shapes in the posters. The blurred images now started to make sense and when stepping away a little bit further I could distinguish faces. When moving to the other side of the road the images became more clear, because of the increased distance; another well though off feature of this design. The context was taken into account.

This must have been the longest time I’ve spent in front of an optician; I don’t even wear prescription glasses, but after a minute or so, I think I started to recognise another Layer in this design. The people on the posters were painted portraits of, I think, wealthy merchants or old local heroes. It made sense, because Napoleon is quite a big thing here.

I think the design of the posters is very smart because it has multiple layers. Of course the “blurry” image is very fitting to apply for an optician, but the images are also very pleasant to look at. These aren’t shouting banners, but give a very premium feel. They are works of are that compliment the items in the window. The hint to the (local) past is quite smart and definitely the best part is the onboarding curve when walking past the store. First you glance the poster and while walking past the images, you discover new details and the concept unfolds itself. Really cool!

I’m sure not everyone is that sensitive to these kinds of things, but I really enjoyed the different layers of complexity in this design. I’ve spent a while trying to figure out who designed these posters, but no luck so far.

Nonetheless: this designer deserves a spotlight.