Year: 2009

Standard Fireworks (RIP)

Photo by robo2004 Destruction and demolition are no strangers to ghostsigns, as the expanding list of ‘obituaries’ documents. Recently news has reached me of one loss and another potentially on the horizon.  These show why the work on the archive is important in preserving the last survivors of this lost art/craft form. First up is this […]

22 Dec 2009

Merry Christmas from Ghostsigns

A little video treat to wish you all the best for the festive season, courtesy of the ghostsigns project. (Inspired by Jane’s card and with music from The Children of St. Philips School Cambridge.) Merry Christmas!

20 Dec 2009

Rage Factor

This campaign now has hand painted signs to support it!  The objective is to ‘steal’ the Christmas number one spot from this year’s X-Factor winner and here are the painters at work spreading the message. If you want to help with the effort then for just 29p you can do your bit to crack Cowell […]

15 Dec 2009

What was John Bull?

A magazine or a tyre brand? Or something else? While working on refining the categories for the archive I came across two signs which I am now uncertain about and I need your help. These are both for brands that adopted the moniker John Bull, which I now understand is a generic character akin to […]

12 Dec 2009

100 Contributors

100 photographers have now added their pictures to the forthcoming archive using this form. The 100th person to do so was Terry Cliss, known as casillero on Flickr, and one of his images is this one for a fantastic sign in Frome. Contributors to date: addedentry akvinby7 Albert S. Bite Alex Dennis Alquin Antony J […]

11 Dec 2009

Charlton Signwriting

Some photos and film from a visit to Charlton to see Chris of Northern Star Creative at work on a sign for a garage. It was great to see him in action and to hear some of his stories from when he used to run a signwriting shop on the Woolwich Road. He’s writing these […]

4 Dec 2009

Chatting with the Ritual Project

I did an interview with the New York project as it reaches its climax. Read it in full here and find out more about their work here.

1 Dec 2009

Black Cat Audio

Fascinating audio giving some history behind the Black Cat sign on Dingley Road, EC1.  This includes the observation that the growth of the cigarette industry in the early part of the last century was partly fuelled by the fact that soldiers fighting in the war were given fags in their rations. They then got hooked […]

27 Nov 2009

Ghostsigns (Most Wanted)

Here are six Flickr galleries of signs not yet ready for inclusion in the Ghostsigns Archive.  The archive is set to launch in January 2010. To date there have been almost 3,000 photos added to the Flickr group from over 300 photographers. Many of these have also been confirmed as gifts to the History of […]

26 Nov 2009

Ritual Project Update

The project is into its final few days and there are some interesting snippets of the painters at work, both close up and in time lapse. Here are a few highlights, more here and here. I’d personally like to see some longer clips with perhaps some discussion from the painters about the techniques employed. I […]

26 Nov 2009

Jo Tomkins

Earlier this year Jo Tomkins, then a student from Ravensbourne College, got in touch for some advice on her graphic design project focused on Stoke Newington ghostsigns.  I tried to help out as much as I could and so I was really happy when she sent through the final output of the project, a folding […]

18 Nov 2009

The Ritual Project

Stella Artois and Colossal Media are collaborating in New York to use hand painted advertising over 21 days to demonstrate the ‘ritual’ of pouring a glass of Stella.  This ritual involves nine steps and by day 11 they’re on step three, mainly due to adverse weather conditions. It’s going to be a busy ten days […]

18 Nov 2009

Londonist

I was interviewed by Jaz over at the Londonist blog a couple of weeks back and this was published on Monday.  It’s always nice to get some profile for the project, even nicer that this came as a result of other bloggers citing it in their earlier interviews for Londonist. Anyway, check it out here.

18 Nov 2009

Ghostsigns on Facebook

I’ve created a page on Facebook for the project which contains videos, photos, links and more. If you use Facebook then you can become a ‘fan’ which will add updates from the page into your news feed. Have a look at what’s going on and join. Ghostsigns on Facebook

15 Nov 2009

Surrey Mirror

The appearance of this sign in Redhill, Surrey acted as a catalyst for an article on the subject of ghostsigns in the Surrey Mirror.  This was kindly sent to me by David Griffiths as it wasn’t published on their website. Some pictures of the other signs that get referenced can be seen here. Click on […]

14 Nov 2009

Emmanuel Nouaillier Update

Just under a year ago I featured the work of Emmanuel Nouaillier whose artistic treatment of the ghostsigns in his native France is fascinating.  It’s worth having a read of this site to understand some of the meticulous technique that goes into producing his work. Emmanuel describes the final print output as, “a mix between sculpture, […]

14 Nov 2009

Gillette/Criterion (RIP)

Gillette/Criterion, Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 (July 2007) Gillette/Criterion, Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 (November 2009) Two RIPs in one day, what’s happening! Again, this happened a little while ago but it was only today that I managed to get out with my camera to take a photograph. This was once one in a series […]

12 Nov 2009

BP (RIP)

BP, Kings Cross Road, London, WC1 (July 2007) BP, Kings Cross Road, London, WC1 (November 2009) It’s been a while since this happened but those based in London may have noticed the erection of some new flats on Kings Cross Road which now obscure the vast majority of this BP sign that was once there. […]

12 Nov 2009

Concord Painting

The ever prolific Frank Jump who blogs on ghostsigns over in New York has uncovered a nice piece of history having been contacted by a relative of someone who painted this sign [update: link no longer available] over there. It turns out that the company that he worked for (Concord Painting) is still in business and […]

12 Nov 2009

Forms Received

Just a quick update on the progress of the archive. So far over 90 forms have been received from those who have been contributing to the Flickr group. Thank you all, the plan is for the online archive to be launched in January 2010. There’s still some way to go in order to ensure that […]

3 Nov 2009

The Cobbled Yard

I was tipped off about this new hand painted sign and got these photos some time ago. The Cobbled Yard sells all sorts of antiques so it’s quite fitting that they should use traditional signwriting to tout their wares. I have been given the contact details of the signwriter who produced this so hope to […]

3 Nov 2009

Bath Ghostsigns

A short visit to Bath and Bristol over the weekend allowed me to visit a handful of west country signs. These maybe aren’t the best examples from that part of the world but if you want to see more then I would recommend checking out Aztec West‘s collection over on Flickr (Bristol and Elsewhere). The […]

3 Nov 2009

Trades & Hospitality

I’ve been a little tied up with changing jobs and planning a wedding but am now back to blogging and pushing the archive forwards again. First up is the final montage in the current series, this time celebrating signs from two categories, Trades, Builders, Plumbers, Handymen and Hotels, Cafes, Restaurants.  These have been combined under […]

22 Oct 2009

The Archive, Phase 2

[The following blog post was written in August 2009 and signified the second phase of the effort to create a Ghostsigns Archive. This has been realised with the archive opening for business on 19th Mrch 2010. Visit this page for more information.] Commit your photos to the Ghostsigns Archive. Just under five months ago I set […]

8 Aug 2009