A new sign featuring a woman blowing bubbles with the tagline “Breathe” has made its way to downtown Chapel Hill to raise awareness for a county-wide smoking ban
The signs are part of a $30,000 education effort by the Orange County Health Department.
While the signs were designed to make residents aware of the ban, many Chapel Hill residents couldn’t identify the meaning behind them.
“As a graphic design major I don’t know what’s happening,” said Junior Kaleb Wilkie when he was told that the new BREATHE bubble signs are part of an anti-smoking campaign.
Simon Stokes, a campus minister with Reformed University Fellowship and resident of Chapel Hill, originally thought the sign might be some sort of advertisement for a spa.
When the true purpose of the mysterious bubble woman was revealed to him he gave a confused look, shrugged and asked, “How does blowing bubbles convey smoke?”
Junior Theodore Prime — a communications major and the only non-smoker interviewed who correctly identified the sign — attributed his success to a lucky guess. He suggested that the designers may have intended to mock smoking by replacing the smoke with the bubbles.
But the bubbles were not devoid of meaning for everyone.
Suzan Johnson, a Chapel Hill resident, is a member of the spiritual blog Lightworkers. The blog helps spiritual people ‘connect with other lightworkers, spiritual seekers, star seeds, wanderers, indigo children, and multi-dimensional beings.’
Apparently the image of a woman blowing blue bubbles bears an uncanny resemblance to the profile picture that Johnson, who was puffing away at the intersection of S. Columbia and Franklin Streets during this interview, uses on Lightworkers.
While the sign failed to discourage Johnson from smoking, it did allow her to experience a reflective and spiritual state of mind.
The ban, which went into effect on Jan. 1, was originally created as a way to empower people who object to smoking, enabling them to object with the law on their side.
Johnson said police enforcement of the law would be impossible.
“They’d be arresting everybody,” she said. “They wouldn’t get anything else done.”
None of the students interviewed were aware that the ban had been passed and none were any the wiser having seen the sign.
The bubbles do appear to promote a calm and reflective mood amongst people who see them: perhaps a worthy investment after all.
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