15 August 2007
Mine, a San Francisco graphic design firm founded by Christopher Simmons, has sent me a press release for their ingenious project: OK Tape. Their project is showing at this year’s California Design Biennial along with many of the more well known objects of desire such as the iPhone ( you may have heard of this). Although the press release is more focussed on the Biennial, I would like to talk about this tape that says “Everything is OK” which is a play on police tape that is normally wrapped around crime scenes and reads something like “Danger”. Rarely do people point out enough when something is going well or at least status quo. I would love to put some of this around my house simply to announce to the neighbors, “Hey, we’re doing pretty well. Just thought you needed to know, so we put up some yellow tape around our house.”
The funny thing about this tape, though, is where Mine has decided to photograph the tape. The picture above shows the tape wrapped around a pole at the corners of 16th Street and Mission in San Francisco, which is a notorious crack addict block. Just a few months ago, I read an article about two people getting beaten down and having their car jacked. They found the cars right where you see the tape in this picture. So, it may be intentionally ironic that this tape is placed exactly where nothing is OK. This leads me to believe that the tape is designed to be used as kind of an ironic band aid. It’s a way to say, ” Please move along. Nothing to see here.”
Just a quick last note. This tape may be a handy tool for therapists to wrap feuding couples. Hmmm. Maybe not.
