Archive

Tracking Down Boots in Stoke-on-Trent

Back in 2016 I gave a short talk about my archiving work at the annual conference of the Business Archives Council, where one of the organisers was a project archivist for Boots chemists.  Afterwards I shared the above image and forwarded her the archival photo below which was shared on the Ghostsigns Facebook page by […]

30 Mar 2018

Lewis & Skinner Exhibit Featuring Ghostsigns and Live Signwriting

The Lewis & Skinner archive is a collection of materials relating to the work of a Melbourne signwriting company from the first half of the last century. These were fortuitously discovered by Dr Stefan Schutt last year and he has since been working to archive them. The result is this fabulous online display which includes […]

29 Sep 2013

HAT Ghostsigns Archive upgrade

The Ghostsigns Archive has been updated as part of the wider upgrade to the History of Advertising Trust website. There are not only more photos available but also a new search function which allows you to browse just the ghostsigns pages. This is not the main site search but the one pictured above immediately before […]

3 Oct 2012

Los Angeles murals photographed by Ernest A. Long

Daniel Lohmann kindly shared the link to this archive of Los Angeles mural photography from Ernest A. Long. There is an introductory article on the Getty education blog and the collection contains 200 images, all taken between 1973 and 1883. Like London it seems that Los Angeles also has a proud tradition of mural art, I […]

28 Jul 2012

Digital Engagement & the Ghostsigns Archive: History Workshop Article

Laura Carletti and I have written a short paper for History Workshop Online.  This builds on the survey and offers some reflections on the development of the archive in 2009-10.

4 Apr 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