São Paulo, Brazil doesn’t have any outdoor advertising. That’s right – no billboards, no bus ads, no posters.

After the passing of the Clean City Law in 2006, the world’s fourth-largest metropolis even restricts the size of storefront signs. Nearly $8 million in fines have been issued to cleanse the landscape.

While the mayor feels the residents “benefit” from an environment not filled with “visual pollution,” it pushes businesses to get creative. Vivo, a Brazilian telecom firm, recently made a colorful mark on the city. In a competition called “Call Parade,” the firm commissioned 100 local artists to create 100 individual payphone booths.

Because after all, payphone booths aren’t advertisements. They’re necessities.

Using the booth’s outer dome as their canvas, the artists came up with a wide range of creations. It’s divergent thinking at it’s best.

Inside this “brain” are pictures representing memories.

A night landscape of the city lit by candle light. In the back you can see São Paulo Cathedral.

If you go to Vivo’s website (pardon the Portuguese), you can see all 100 painted phonebooth covers.

–Stew

(Photo Credit: Colossal: Art and Visual Ingenuity)