Prince may be gone, but will never be forgotten. Tributes to the icon have been popping up all over the world since his death on April 21st. Buildings have been lit up in purple lights, social media has been ablaze with photos and quotes from his song lyrics, and even the cartoonists have taken a break from the political banter to draw tributes to Prince.
The Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) is no different…they also wanted to recognize the loss of a legend. Rob Jackson is the owner of Extra Credit Projects in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jackson says they were contacted by the OAAA to design a billboard tribute and dropped everything to get started. The request from OAAA was to create an image that could go up on member’s billboards immediately. Jackson says, “We went for the simplest expression we could in the shortest amount of time. Part of the creativity is the responsiveness in these cases.”
The simple yet profound design they settled on was a purple background with yellow “RIP” emblazoned on it, using Prince’s famously shaped guitar as the “I” and the same font as was used to spell “Purple Rain” for the title of both the song and Prince’s semi-autobiographical movie back in 1984.
Billboards all over Michigan, Indiana and other parts of the country are honoring Prince’s memory with this design and others…some have quotes from Prince’s lyrics, while others simply display his symbol and echo the sentiment of “no words”…kind of like how fans feel at the loss of the superstar.
Jackson has also designed billboards in memory of other icons, including former President Gerald Ford, who was a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The former President passed in 2006, and word of the billboard tribute made its way to former First Lady Betty Ford, who sent Jackson a handwritten note telling him how much she liked the tribute. Jackson also honored her passing in 2011 with a billboard design that highlighted her iconic 1970’s hairdo.