Sam Roberts

Annette Smith

On the back of my post about the interview in Bath for BBC Radio 4’s Making History program I have been contacted by Bath artist and photographer Annette Smith.  By pure coincidence she currently has an exhibition running until this weekend at the Octagon in Bath as part of the ‘Fringe Arts Bath’ festival. She […]

9 Jun 2010

New Hovis Commercial

Rank Hovis kindly sponsored the work with The History of Advertising Trust in getting the archive off the ground and now their sister brand, Hovis, have featured a Ghostsign in their latest TV commercial. You can catch a glimpse at about 00:10 in the clip below. Incidentally this sign isn’t in the archive so any […]

7 Jun 2010

Making History in Bath

Press interest in the project continues and on Thursday last week I travelled to Bath to be interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 program Making History.  The resulting feature will be broadcast at 3.00pm on Tuesday, 15th June and will also be available after this on iPlayer. [Update: Listen to Ghostsigns on Making History.] Bath […]

6 Jun 2010

Type Tour

A few weeks ago I went on a walking tour organised by type which was led by the very knowledgable, ex-compositor, John Voller. It took in the area around Fleet Street and St Pauls where the print industry grew up alongside the many associated disciplines/crafts, not least typography. This tour was the ‘West’ route, there […]

6 Jun 2010

BBC Radio Nottingham

This short piece was broadcast on BBC Radio Nottingham on the morning of 18th May 2010.  It features an interview with historyanorak and was accompanied by a photo feature on their website. Coming soon will be another piece on radio, this time BBC Radio 4 featuring an interview with me in Bath for the Making […]

4 Jun 2010

Design Week

Nice piece from David Bernstein published in Design Week, 22nd April 2010, full text pasted below.   PRIVATE VIEW APRIL 2010 “‘There stands the ghost of a great name’ wrote Lucan, the Roman poet. He was referring to Pompey. Not the football club but the general who also lost regularly – to Julius Caesar. Lucan’s invocation […]

1 May 2010

Preserve

Fischer Strube, Luzern Switzerland (Photo: Erik Wallace) While mine and the History of Advertising Trust’s efforts have focused on hand painted advertising from the UK and Ireland it’s always worth remembering that Ghostsigns are a global phenomenon. In fact there are others around the world attempting to capture them for posterity in much the same […]

1 May 2010

Ghostsigns Indoors

English’s Fancy Bazaar by Paul & Karen Rennie What with launching the archive, getting married and travel plans impacted by the volcano I’m a little behind with blog posting. This means I’ve been sitting on this little discovery for a couple of months. What you see above is the first and only example I’ve ever […]

1 May 2010

UP THERE

This is fantastic, the final film ‘UP THERE’ produced over the duration of Stella Artois’ ‘Ritual Project’ in New York in collaboration with Colossal Media. I’ve already talked at length about this work and my admiration for Colossal Media so I won’t cover the old ground again here but what I love about this film […]

27 Apr 2010

One Show & the Guardian

[Update: better quality video here.] Here’s the piece that was broadcast on the One Show, BBC1, on 12th April 2010. To see it full screen on youtube click here. On the same day, by pure coincidence, the Guardian did a write-up in their G2 section. Read it in full here or here.

25 Apr 2010

UP THERE from the Ritual Project

Readers of the blog may recall my discussions of the collaboration between Colossal Media and Stella Artois a.k.a. ‘The Ritual Project‘. This was all set to lead to a documentary but then everything went quiet.  That is until I received an email yesterday from my contact on the production team with news that they’ve been […]

30 Mar 2010

Archive Press

Me with our sponsors from Rank Hovis and Roy Jeans of IPMPhoto: Trevor Liberson More event photos in this Flickr Set. Following last week’s launchI’ve had a busy time with follow up activity.  Some of this has been from press interested in writing up the story and I’ll give some more updates soon, especially after […]

26 Mar 2010

The archive launches

Thank you to everyone who came along to the launch event last night, photos below. The archive is now available so make a visit and have a browse. I’m really happy with the way this has all come together and as I said last night it would simply not have been possible without the generous support […]

19 Mar 2010

Archive launches tomorrow…

The final video and image highlight as we count down to tomorrow’s launch of the archive. The picture is from the new Hotels & Restaurants gallery while the video features an assortment of different categories which previously didn’t have a home (they now do!). Finally, below, is another video from much earlier in the project […]

18 Mar 2010

Two days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Media & Entertainment gallery, although the video was made before the slight adjustment to the categories and has some for shops and retailers that have been split across a number of the new […]

17 Mar 2010

Three Days to Launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Tradesmen & DIY gallery, although the video was made before the slight adjustment to the categories and has some that now feature in the Hotels & Restaurants gallery. More tomorrow.

16 Mar 2010

Four days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Medical & Health gallery. More tomorrow.

15 Mar 2010

Five days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March.  These are from the Services & Financial gallery. More tomorrow. Kodak / A.S.Ashby by casillero

14 Mar 2010

Six days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March.  These are from the Household & Furniture gallery. The images being featured in this countdown to launch are all those that feature on the postcard series which will be available to buy from Friday, 19th March. More […]

13 Mar 2010

One week to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Travel & Transport gallery. The images being featured in this countdown to launch are all those that feature on the postcard series which will be available to buy from Friday, 19th March. More […]

11 Mar 2010

Eight days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Shoes & Clothing gallery. More tomorrow.

10 Mar 2010

Nine days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Food & Drink gallery. More tomorrow.

10 Mar 2010

Ten days to launch…

With ten days until the archive opens I thought it would be worth picking out some highlights of the project so far.  I’ll do one each day until announcing the archive is open for business on Friday, 19th March. First up is this great photo of the Puck Match sign in Leeds and, below, another […]

8 Mar 2010

Preserve NZ

The latest contributions to the Preserve project in New Zealand have just been uploaded including this great photo of the famous Kings Cross ‘Scales, Weights & Weighing Machines’ sign taken by Sam Hardacre.  I’ve been in touch with Mark who runs the project and will write more about him and his work soon. In the […]

2 Mar 2010