To promote the new movie Contagion, agency Lowe Roche in Toronto created billboards made from real live bacteria. See how they did it:
The Montreal Gazette has more:
“We wanted to create an organic execution that people could fall in love with,” said Anthony Ganjou, founder of U.K.-based CURB media, an agency specializing in natural and sustainable media whose previous creations include billboards made out of grass plants and light installations made out of glow-in-the-dark bacteria.
Using 35 different strains of bacteria and fungi — including penicillin, mould and pigmented bacteria — CURB’s team of 25 microbiologists and immunologists tested different strains of bacteria to see which would work best at creating a message that would slowly grow into letters making up the film’s name.
The billboards were only up for five days before they were removed.