Page 223 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

220 ART AND CRAFTS

exception. Apart from Lux, Cosco, Haque, Meril, Keya, Aromatic, Tibet, Ponds etc.
also use pictures of models in the packets of their cosmetic products. Then again, the
photographs or hand done drawings of the product or the materials related to it are also
used on the covers of particular products.
7. Painted Banner, Hoarding, Neon Sign, etc.
In Bangladesh, banner painting developed mainly after the partition with the rise of
the film industry. Especially, when the construction of permanent cinema halls and
commercial film screening started, banner painting grew and developed to publicize
films. The golden age for cinema banner painting is considered to be between the 50s
to the early 80s. It started to decline gradually from the 80s. Nowadays, digital prints
are being used in place of painted cinema banners and other banners, which appear to
be a threat for the hand painted banner painters. Just like cinema banners, hoarding
culture also started its journey from the 50s. Apart from the purpose of publicity of
films, hoardings are used for the campaign of different products or social welfare
works. Hoarding plays an important role in decorating cities.
In the 50s and 60s, there were separate organizations assigned for hoardings, such as—
Neptune, Evergreen, Rupayan, etc. Presently quite a number of organizations work on
hoardings. They sometimes work directly or make exact copies of designs according to
the needs of the advertising agencies and place the hoardings in assigned spots.
As nowadays mostly the publicity of important organizations are done through
advertising agencies, we can see uniformity in the advertisements on TV and those in
magazines. These also have a great impact on the hoardings. The designs of these
hoardings slightly change the advertisement of the magazines, exactly reprint the same
or adapt the main concept of the TV advertisement. Like the magazines, hoardings also
began to use models mainly from the 80s (pl. 4.21). The presence of stars as models is
noteworthy. Because of the multinational companies, the presence of stars from
neighboring countries is not rare anymore. In most of these designs it is hard to
discover Bangladesh. Then again, the artistic representation of Bangladesh is also
present in some designs. Positive impact of the competitive advertising of several cell
phone companies are also found in the hoardings. The hoardings of real estate agencies
are almost all of the same type. However, to make them more artistic and attractive,
many techniques are additionally applied to create aesthetic designs for hoardings.
Apart from these purposes, hoardings are being used as a very efficient medium for
government and non-government organizations to campaign for community welfare.
For example, hoardings can be seen on plantation programs or the dangers of different
ailments such as AIDS awareness or the hazards of smoking or literacy programs to
build social awareness among people. The statement is naturally the most important
part of these kinds of hoarding designs. In some cases, photographs as well as
drawings are used.
These days, many advertisements are observable on double-decker and ordinary
buses. There are both commercial and social awareness-building advertisements