Year: 2012

Lovely painted wall in Sydney absinthe bar

Spotted on the BBC.

21 Mar 2012

Four layers of Dubonnet palimpsest

Great discovery here from Sebastien in which he has identified four signs for the same brand vying for position on the same wall.  There’s a great gallery of French ghost signs here (Dubonnet here) and my posts on the country are here with additional photos in this Flickr set.

20 Mar 2012

Design agency OPX launches London Typographica

This site [Link expired] from OPX is aiming to build a map of lettering forms of all sorts from across the capital.  These include chisselled stone, hand painted signs, plaques, shop fronts, in fact just about anything that has letters and can be seen at street level in London.  It’s a bit of a lottery […]

19 Mar 2012

Sebastien Ardouin discovers another RIP in Sheen Lane, Richmond

Another one bites the dust here.

18 Mar 2012

Chicago Ghostsigns mapped online and photographed for thesis

This website [Link expired] allows you to browse locations in Chicago and find the neighbourhood ghostsigns there.  It was created by Nicole Donohoe for her thesis and has some great examples from this city which I haven’t previously seen many signs from.  I’m not sure if the project is still active but there is a […]

17 Mar 2012

Hand painted wall signs and murals from Hungary

József László is an artist in Budapest, Hungary, specialising in photo-real hand painted advertising, other hand painted wall advertising and murals.  His work impressed me so I thought I’d share some of the pictures he sent me.  Some of these remind me of Colossal Media’s work, some are more like the signs I saw in Bangladesh, and […]

16 Mar 2012

Flag Makers sign in San Francisco faces uncertain future

Photo: Joe Thompson This blog post signals a likely future RIP for this ghostsign in San Francisco.

15 Mar 2012

Woody Guthrie’s less well known vocation as a signwriter

Frank Jump has alerted me to this interesting insight into the folk singer’s first occupation.  Is this another way in which he has influenced Bob Dylan is his line of work as a visual artist?

14 Mar 2012

Spokane Students Hunt for Ghost Signs in ‘An Experiment in Public History Pedagogy’

The Public History students of Spokane have been set this brief which will get them out into the town to photograph the various ghost signs there. They’ll also have to use various historical sources to uncover the stories of the companies advertised by the signs and the people who painted them. It looks set to […]

13 Mar 2012

Vernacular Typography interviewed by Vanishing New York

Photo: Molly Woodward, Vernacular Typography Read the interview here.  Further good news is that this project is now fully funded so expect more news in the coming months…

12 Mar 2012

Rick Janzen of Streamline Studios creates a ‘ghostsign’ from scratch

Photos: Rick Janzen This photo essay shows the various stages in recreating the effect of a ghostsign using water-based paints (the rest of the blog is worth checking out too, especially this post and this one).  This appears to be a different technique to that employed by Colossal Media at the end of this video. […]

11 Mar 2012

Writing on the Wall working to preserve and restore ghostsigns in the Netherlands

This organisation in the Netherlands was established in 1999 and has been working ever since to raise the profile of hand painted wall advertising in the country.  They also get involved with other outdoor forms such as hanging signs and neon advertisements, but the main focus is Ghostsigns, especially their restoration and protection.  A lot […]

9 Mar 2012

Grandma’s Boy sign in Vancouver is no more, RIP

This is the scene at the central Vancouver intersection where this sign enjoyed an unexpected two weeks’ of fame following the destruction of the adjacent building. A nice collection of photos documenting the brief rise, and rapid fall, of the sign in this Vancouver Sun photo collection

8 Mar 2012

1996 fire reveals two ghostsigns in Columbus, Ohio

Photo: udhcmh Documentation of the exposure resulting from fire on Ohio State University land in 1996.

7 Mar 2012

The Swear: ‘Ghost Signs’

My web crawlers sometimes throw up completely unexpected references to ghostsigns, this one being a song by gothic rockers, The Swear.  I contacted singer/songwriter Elizabeth Elkins to ask if there was any connection to Ghostsigns of the painted form and sure enough there was… “Ghost Signs takes the idea of physical ghost signs and turns […]

5 Mar 2012

Faded Paint: Trailer for forthcoming signpainting documentary

The Colossal Media Facebook page recently alerted me to this trailer (see below) uploaded by Rick Janzen about a film he’s making about the declining art and craft of signwriting. This will add to the work done by the Signpainter Movie team. Faded Paint – The Vanishing Sign Painter from Rick janzen on Vimeo. You can see some of the […]

4 Mar 2012

Danville City Council defines rules for restoration of ghostsigns

Interesting piece of legislation reported here [Link expired, mention on p.41 here) from Danville City, California, including that “building owners…cannot recreate signs that have been painted over with other signs”,  This must give preference to newer signs, assuming it is clear which came last… More on restoration and protection on the main blog.

3 Mar 2012

Signs and more in Dickens’ London

Picture: ‘Dickens’s Victorian London‘ by Alex Werner and Tony William Collection of 19th Century photography in London, some inadvertently capturing the advertising and signage of the age.  Original photo here, book available here.

2 Mar 2012

Cool barbers sign in Mumbai, 1970/80s

More in this BBC gallery, although not with the cool sign mirroring the ‘model’ in the background.  Original photo here.

1 Mar 2012

Now you see me, now you don’t: London’s elusive shop signs

Nice article here about the brief reveal, and more extended cover up, of some of London’s beautiful hand painted shop signs.  In some ways they are being preserved, but they could be equally be showcased.  They represent the skills of signwiters such as the contemporary Peter Hardwicke.  Jane also covered a closely related topic in her account […]

29 Feb 2012

More Vancouver Ghostsigns and related article

Following this post on the main blog I stumbled across this small collection of Vancouver ghostsigns and a link to this article [Link expired] where some of the local heritage and conservation issues are discussed.  The situation in that respect is very similar to that in the UK.  (A variety of blog post related to […]

28 Feb 2012

Vancouver demolition reveals intriguing ghostsign

Twitter and my Google Reader came alive this week following the demolition of a Vancouver building that left the best part of this 1920s sign clear for all to see. Located on corner of Granville Street and Robson Street, it is a colourful specimen in excellent condition, the building which has come down working to protect […]

26 Feb 2012

Article charting the history and early photography of advertising painted on walls

Daniel Lohmann posted an article he’s written to the ghostsigns Facebook group. It is in german and the original can be found here [Link expired] with links to full size copies of the diverse set of images referenced. The pdf of the original as it appeared in published form is also available here. I’ve run the […]

26 Feb 2012

Can new Brickads Generate Income for Denver’s LoDo District? Discuss.

This popped up on twitter, considering the leasing of wall space as a means of generating income, community exposure and maintaining artistic heritage in LoDo, Denver.  Lots of Collosal Media featured in addition to some lovely archive photography.  I wonder if, with every new brickad that gets painted, something of the impact and novelty of […]

25 Feb 2012