Sam Roberts

Adzookie

The History of Advertising Trust Twitter stream recently brought this initiative to my attention from mobile advertising firm Adzookie. Essentially they will pay your mortgage if you agree to have this garish design slapped onto the external walls of your home. However, in the current downturn, and with people struggling to avoid repossessions, they may […]

4 Jun 2011
My Leicestershire Digital Archive

Colin Hyde from the Centre for Urban History at Leicester University sent me an email with a fascinating link today. It is to a project he has been curating over the last couple of years which features an unrivalled collection of Ghostsigns from the county of Leicestershire. What is most interesting about the c.250 images in […]

16 May 2011
The Painted Ad

Twenty-two years on from publishing the definitive Ghostsigns book, William Stage is back. ‘The Painted Ad: A Postcard Book of Vintage Brick Wall Signs’ builds on his own professional work in the postcard industry. He has pooled 25 of his best Ghostsigns images to create a book of cards which can be used to send […]

10 May 2011
Fresh lick of paint

I received an email this morning from a mural artist with an interest in working to restore/repaint Ghostsigns in the UK. She found me via a great project being run by the London Mural Preservation Society. I started drafting a response and then realised I’ve never written specifically about this topic and thought a blog […]

7 May 2011
Geoslideshow

I’ve been slowly pursuing the Ghostsigns Worldwide idea and, in the process, came across a new web application being developed. It’s called Geoslideshow and, in response to my suggestion, they’ve cracked the code to generate a map of all geotagged photos in a Flickr group. Click here for the application of this to the Ghostsigns […]

9 Apr 2011
Haggai Osewe

I always enjoy a video with some signwriting, so I was chuffed to find this from Kenya, through Charlie, and thought I’d share. Alongside my discoveries in Cambodia it just goes to show that the art and craft is still alive and kicking in much of the world. It would be great to include some […]

17 Mar 2011
Brad Blackman

(PA)RK (H)ERE Oil on canvas, 5 x 7 inches © 2011 Brad Blackman It’s been a while since I’ve come across a new artist using Ghostsigns as a springboard for their own work. Today, one came into my inbox, this time from Brad Blackman in ‘music city’, Nashville, USA. It is part of a series […]

24 Jan 2011
Ultrabold, Summer 2010

The Summer 2010 issue of Ultrabold, the journal of the St Bride Library, features an article by me on the launch of the HAT Ghostsigns Archive. You can view a pdf here, or subscribe to the journal by becoming a friend of St Bride here. My previous Ultrabold article can be found here with other […]

8 Oct 2010
Cambodia

As you may have seen from my post last month I’m now based in Cambodia for the next two years. While I haven’t yet come across many hand painted signs on walls the hand painted form is alive and well here. They are everywhere I go, offering simple illustrations for those who can’t read and […]

4 Oct 2010
Change

“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.” Robert C. Gallagher Cambodia As some of you will have heard, things are changing in my life and, consequently, with the Ghostsigns Project. This coming Thursday I will be travelling to Cambodia to join my wife who is already there getting ready for our two year […]

13 Sep 2010
Summer 2010

Bile Beans: Balm Road, Leeds Photographer: Richard Turner In my speech at the HAT archive launch I said that I felt it would be just the start of an ongoing documentation of hand painted advertising of old. Sure enough, the archive and associated publicity surrounding its opening have led to many new contributors getting in […]

13 Sep 2010
London Mural Preservation Society

At last week’s Sign Design Society talk I met Ruth who has started an initiative aimed at raising awareness, researching, restoring and protecting the many hand painted murals that can be found dotted across the capital. These were generally initiated as community arts projects and Ruth has been tracking down the artists who once produced […]

10 Sep 2010
Thumbnails Map

This is pretty cool (inspired from the comments on here), pulling the geotagged Creative Commons images out of the Ghostsigns Pool on Flickr. Thoughts, feedback, comments and suggestions welcomed (sam@ghostsigns.co.uk). Click the picture for the dynamic version (may take a few seconds to load) and find a Ghostsign near you…

9 Sep 2010
Lincoln

Photo: Paul Turner Another one bites the dust, this time for Blue Star/Regent in Lincoln. This sign had real star quality, if you’ll excuse the pun, and featured from the Travel & Transport gallery in the series of postcards produced to celebrate the opening of the HAT archive. This is another piece of evidence for […]

9 Sep 2010
Telegraph

A nice feature in this Sunday’s Telegraph documents many jobs that are gradually disappearing, including that of the advertising signwriter alongside rag and bone men, matchgirls and airbrush artists (pre-photoshop) among others. Written by Peter Lyle the signwriting piece focuses on Wayne Tanswell, contemporary signwriter, and a brief quote from me about the habit that […]

22 Aug 2010
Street Art

sarflondondunc, ever alert to the gradual shifts in our Ghostsigns landscape, alerted me to this new piece of street art positioned on the great Boyd Pianos sign on Shacklewell Lane, Hackney. It’s by the Canadian artist Specter and is part of the ‘If I saw you in heaven’ project. This attempts to “address the issue of […]

11 Aug 2010
Anchor

Photo: Creative Review Photo: Creative Review Creative Review and a few others have spotted this new outdoor campaign for Anchor Butter. When I first saw the photos I assumed they were genuine hand painted ads but they are actually printed billboards which, in the case of the press shots, are cleverly cropped to suggest otherwise. […]

5 Aug 2010
BBC Ghostsigns

I’ve just got round to posting the proper quality copies of the two biggest pieces of BBC coverage of the project. These are the One Show piece with correctly synched audio (below) and, more recently, the piece on BBC Radio 4’s Making History program. In print, there was this in the Guardian.

12 Jul 2010
Trails

Ghostsigns have recently popped up a couple of times in trails I’ve come across. These build on my recent type tour and a post about Jo Tomkins’ Stoke Newington Ghostsigns Walk. First up are the Battersea Heritage Trails, a neat little 64-page A6 booklet detailing a series of seven trails around the area. This has […]

12 Jul 2010
ARC Magazine

> The latest issue of ARC magazine from the Society of Archivists features this two page article on the Ghostsigns Project.

8 Jul 2010
Roofad to God

I’ve talked about Roofads before, this is a pretty cool addition to the series, advertising this and found here.

5 Jul 2010
Mapping Ghostsigns

This free application offers some of what I’m looking for, allowing my own geotagged Flickr photos to be easily plotted on a map. When you click on any image in the bar at the bottom or pin in the map you get a direct link to the Flickr photo and any information given in the […]

29 Jun 2010
Ghostsigns Worldwide, Part 2

I’ve added this sketch diagram to the initial brief and also built a mockup of a page format that could be used.

28 Jun 2010
Ghostsigns Worldwide

Imagine a map like this plotting examples of hand painted advertising from across the world… (Image from Panoramio) I’ve been doing some thinking about the project and how we can move it to have global reach in a quick and collaborative way. This is new territory for me and I’m looking for ideas, help, advice […]

26 Jun 2010