Carlsbad Village has long been home to colorful street banners that hang year-round on light poles throughout the downtown area. During the holidays the street banners are changed out for seasonal designs featuring festive wreaths on doors, cups of hot cocoa, and even snowmen on the beach. Street banners blend into our cityscape, so well sometimes that we forget they are there, but they continue to act as a visible community messaging system.
During the pandemic, the city installed “Mask Up” street banners both in and outside of the Village as an effective health-related public service campaign. Most, if not all, cities did the same, knowing that banners are an effective way to deliver a consistent message. But when the blue and white banners finally came down, they left behind a visual void that was just begging to be filled. But this time the goal was to fill that space with images to promote what we love and cherish the most about Carlsbad. And the goal was to do this using mostly photos taken by local photographers.