green pedestrian crossing

The China Environmental Protection Foundation teamed up with the DDB China Group for what has to be one of the coolest interactive, visually compelling environmental campaigns ever. The idea behind the Green Pedestrian Crossings was to get people thinking about the environmental benefits of walking versus driving, with these massive, gorgeous trees as the end result.

The campaign worked like this: canvases with the image of a bare tree were placed across 132 crosswalks in 15 Chinese cities. With green paint placed on either side, as pedestrians crossed, their shoes picked up the green, creating a trail of leaf-like footprints on the canvas. The resulting images of leafy green trees were hung as billboards in several urban locations, but what's truly incredible to think about is that DDB estimates that nearly 3,920,000 people passed through the installations while they were up. That's an enormous amount of people not only viewing the trees and their message, but contributing to their creation as well.

(Via Colossal)