Sign Collections

Michelle Heron’s Fantastic Fascias

Michelle Heron is a London-based painter with a paticular fascination for old shops and shop fronts. Her paintings depict iconic fascias, many of which have been lost since she turned her attention to them, and some that survive in a state of perpetual uncertainty. As with my own work on ghostsigns, Michelle is focused on […]

20 Apr 2018

London Street Signs with Alistair Hall

Alistair Hall of We Made This has spent the last couple of years documenting and researching the various forms taken by London’s Street Signs. He is set to present his findings in a lecture at St Bride on 31 May, so of course I’ve bought a ticket. I’m very happy to see an example in […]

9 Mar 2018

Painted Advertisements in Islington: Part 4

The list below of painted advertisements in Islington was compiled in the hope that some of those reading it might write in with additional locations not known to the compiler, and in the belief that painted advertisements in other parts of London would make a useful, educative and rewarding topic for those, whether private enthusiasts […]

2 Mar 2018

Painted Advertisements in Islington: Part 3

The list below of painted advertisements in Islington was compiled in the hope that some of those reading it might write in with additional locations not known to the compiler, and in the belief that painted advertisements in other parts of London would make a useful, educative and rewarding topic for those, whether private enthusiasts […]

23 Feb 2018

Painted Advertisements in Islington: Part 2

The list below of painted advertisements in Islington was compiled in the hope that some of those reading it might write in with additional locations not known to the compiler, and in the belief that painted advertisements in other parts of London would make a useful, educative and rewarding topic for those, whether private enthusiasts […]

16 Feb 2018

Images of Buenos Aires’ Advertising Past

Historia de la Publicidas is a wonderful archive documenting the advertising history of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Curated by Raul Manrupe the collection features a mixture of archival photography, contemporary images of ghost signs, and other artwork involved in the production and documentation of outdoor advertising. Raul has kindly let me reproduce some of my […]

9 Feb 2018

Photo Album of Painted Coca-Cola Signs (1914)

Earlier this year I came across this project to restore a photo album of painted Coca-Cola signs, dating from 1913-14. The album is a fascinating survey of signs that were painted across New England over 100 years ago, some of which survive today as ghost signs. The team at The Coca-Cola Company kindly shared the […]

24 Nov 2017

‘London Sign by Sign’ by Marco Bazelmans

Back in May, Marco Bazelmans contacted me about a project he was working on as part of his communication design studies in Aachen, Germany. The brief was to create a guide of some sort, and he had selected signwriting as his theme. In particular, he had honed in on the idea of portraying signwriting, both […]

4 Oct 2017

More Minnesota Ghostsigns…

Earlier this month I was back in Mazeppa, Minnesota for more workshops with Mike Meyer and Better Letters. This gave me an opportunity to see some of the signs there without the snowy backdrop, and also to spend some time in Minneapolis where there were numerous new ghostsigns to discover. (See my earlier photos here.) […]

21 Jul 2017

Fading Ads of Gloucester by Chris West

Fading Ads of Gloucester extends the current series from the History Press in the UK, USA, and Ireland. The material has been researched and gathered by Chris West, graphic designer for the publisher. The format of the titles in the series varies but this one opts for some very brief introductory comments, before moving into […]

29 Apr 2017

Hidden Coca-Cola Ghostsign in Portland’s Witherspoon Building

Building work hems in two ghost signs, one for Coca-Cola and one for Dodson’s Whiskey, in Portland, Oregon.

1 Apr 2017

East End Shops from Spitalfields Life

Spitalfields Life has published a series of pieces documenting East End shop fronts, in support of the campaign against the forthcoming rise in business rates across the area. I have picked one photo from each piece and would encourage a proper browse of all of them. Fascinating stuff! Alan Dein’s East End Shops John Claridge’s […]

4 Mar 2017

Painted Advertisements in Islington: Part 1

I am conducting a small investigation into the ghostsigns of Islington and am appealing for help from readers of this blog. The map below (view full screen) will form the basis for this, in the context of the following notes. Recently while going through old binders with some of my very early research into ghostsigns […]

4 Feb 2017

Photos of Old Stoke Newington

Amir Dotan’s excellent History of Stoke Newington project has just published over 4,000 images on Flickr, from a variety of sources. They are well worth a browse, as are his Facebook and Twitter feeds. While looking through I pulled out a handful relating to locations featured on my Ghostsigns Walking Tour. The famous, and listed, […]

3 Jan 2017

Spitalfields Ghostsigns from Philip Marriage

Philip Marriage recently sent me this photo of these perpendicular palimpsests at the junction of Brick Lane and Princelet Street. He was trying to work out what they say. This followed his question about the location of another Spitalfields ghostsign which followers on Twitter and Facebook were able to track down to Hanbury Street. I […]

20 Dec 2016

New Book: Ghost Signs of Bath

Ghost Signs of Bath has been a book waiting to happen for many years, and I have written about the city on a number of previous occasions. Fortunately Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott of Akeman Press have seized the opportunity and created a publication that takes local historical research into ghostsigns to new levels. I […]

28 Nov 2016

More Glasgow Ghostsigns

In July I headed to Glasgow to deliver a workshop, screening and talk for the Merchant City Festival. (A write-up of what happened can be found over on the Better Letters blog.) While there I got to see lots of new ghostsigns, and other forms of historic and noteworthy signage, much of which I collated into my […]

23 Sep 2016

Fading Ads of Cincinnati

Fading Ads of Cincinnati by Ronny Salerno is the latest in the series of books from The History Press. Documenting the ghostsigns of his hometown, Ronny offers up some beautiful examples, complimented by detailed local history research that places them in context. Versus others in the series there is slightly less generic material on the […]

23 Jul 2016

Ghost Letters of Vienna

Ghost Letters of Vienna is a project to photographically document the wide range of fading fascias, and other forms of redundant lettering, on buildings in the Austrian capital. I met with the project leader, Tom Koch, during his recent visit to London, and have offered a Ghostsigns Walking Tour as one of the prizes in […]

18 May 2016

36 Porto Signs

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, largely due to work on the book taking over for the last six months or so. Following a week in Amsterdam with Better Letters I enjoyed a long weekend in Porto, Portugal. Here is a slide show of some of the signs (‘ghost’ and otherwise) that I found […]

16 Mar 2016

Ghost Signs of Dublin by Antonia Hart

Last year saw the publication of Ghost Signs of Dublin, to my knowledge the first book covering the subject in Ireland. It is the latest in the growing set of titles from The History Press, previously focused on the UK and USA. (See: Birmingham Alabama; Liverpool; New York; Phildelphia; St. Louis). Versus other titles in […]

16 Nov 2015

Glasgow Ghostsigns Galore

I’ve been traveling a lot with work lately and was recently in Glasgow for a workshop. With a couple of hours to spare I looked up a few locations on the History of Advertising Trust Ghostsigns Archive and took to the streets. Here’s what I saw… An abandoned gallery and picture framers, F.W. Holroyd. The […]

18 Feb 2015

Signs & Frescoes in Pompeii & Herculaneum

When I give talks on the history of signs painted on walls I often refer to their ancient history, going back at least as far as Roman times. Evidence for this comes from the ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum as seen before on these photos shared with me by Will Collin five years ago. (Ancient […]

11 Feb 2015

Signs of Cambodia: Free London Exhibition

This weekend I’m bringing a collection of original painted signs from Kratie, Cambodia, and photography of others across the country to A.S. Handover in Stoke Newington, London. The exhibition is completely free and I’ll be there all weekend to discuss the material and sign copies of my book, Hand-Painted Signs of Kratie. Here are the […]

3 Dec 2014