Mapping

1001 London Ghost Signs, Mapped

The online map that accompanies the book, Ghost Signs: A London Story, now has over 1,000 pinned signs.

25 Sep 2024

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

Ghost Signs and Public Lettering in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter

On 21 May, before my Type Talk at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, I helped lead a walk through the city’s historic Jewellery Quarter. This was in collaboration with Geraldine Marshall of the Birmingham Graphic DNA Project, and focused on the ghostsigns and public lettering that can be found in the quarter. It was […]

4 Jun 2014

Time Travel with Google Streetview

This fragment of a ghostsign for Daren Bread in Stoke Newington is one of the stops on my walking tour in the area. Now, thanks to Google Streetview’s new ‘timelapse’ feature, we are able to visit the location as it was in 2008, prior to the removal of the mounted sign for Lemongrass. This clearly […]

29 Apr 2014

Melbourne’s Ghostsigns and their Hunters

Back in March I was in Melbourne where I checked out some of the ghostsigns the city has to offer in addition to giving a talk alongside Stephen Banham at the University. Some of this was thanks to a chauffeur-driven tour by Stefan Schutt (Finding the Radio Book and Lewis & Skinner) and some of […]

13 Oct 2013

Ghostsigns from Invisible Bordeaux

Tim Pike runs the Invisible Bordeaux blog. I recently helped him find some locations in the area for a new series of posts about ghostsigns. In addition to this first blog post about ghostsigns in Bordeaux, Tim has cleverly plotted them all on a Google map which he will add to as he makes more […]

3 Nov 2012

More San Francisco Ghostsigns mapped

The latest research by Kasey Smith of the Perception Filter blog is now plotted on a map with images and research available by clicking on each marker. It’s building into quite a collection and shows at a local level part of my vision for a global mapping of hand painted advertising on buildings.

25 Jul 2012

Dr Ken Jones’ mosaic technique for ghostsigns photography

Dr Ken Jones is a former NASA imaging expert whose work in the 1970s included digitally photographing the surface of Mars. This required the use of image ‘mosaics’, a technique which he is now applying to the more terrestrial subject of ghostsigns.Dr Jones’ work starts from a fairly simple concept of what he wants from the […]

18 Apr 2012

Mapping San Francisco’s Ghostsigns

This project [Link expired] is seeking to create a comprehensive google map of ghostsigns in San Francisco.  It is run by Kasey Smith of the Perception Filter blog (recommended) and has already made significant progress. Many of the stories surrounding the documented signs are published on the blog, including the reveal of the one pictured […]

25 Mar 2012

Frank Jump leads a guided tour of Greenpoint, New York

Frank Jump led this tour last week to raise awareness of the ‘fading ads’ in this part of New York.  I was a bit slow off the mark to preview it but fortunately Jeremiah at Fading New York did just that and used the opportunity to ask Frank a few questions about his passion for […]

24 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

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

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

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

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

Flook

[Update: This application no longer exists.] This free iPhone app now features ghostsigns in the form of geolocated photo cards.  My Flickr images have been used to test the app’s integration with the photosharing website and the results have been a success. By getting the app on your iPhone you can view and create photo […]

21 Jan 2010

Jo Tomkins

Earlier this year Jo Tomkins, then a student from Ravensbourne College, got in touch for some advice on her graphic design project focused on Stoke Newington ghostsigns.  I tried to help out as much as I could and so I was really happy when she sent through the final output of the project, a folding […]

18 Nov 2009

Latest Locations & Some Missing

Following the previous mapping of the archive postcodes, here’s an update representing the c.600 signs catalogued for the archive across the key categories being worked on. There are also quite a few that are still waiting on location information, specifically street names and postcodes. These are listed below (alphabetical by county). If anyone can help […]

19 Jul 2009

Mapping Ghostsigns

Here’s a neat little thing, all the postcodes in the archive so far plotted onto a map.  This gives a really good sense of just how much this is becoming a nationwide project thanks to all the efforts of those submitting their photos to the Flickr group. If you go to the map proper then […]

22 Jun 2009

Google Street View

I’ve been geotagging lots of my pictures on Flickr for the UK Ghost Signs archive project. In order to get postcodes for some of the locations I’ve also been putting the street names into Google Maps. If you haven’t come across it already then you must check out Google Street View. They’ve taken what must […]

29 Mar 2009

Google Earth Experiment

Last winter I took some of my photos from Flickr and attempted to begin building a map of signs and locations. You can see my preliminary results here if you have Google Earth installed on your machine. You can zoom in and move around and then click on the thumbnail signs for a bigger view […]

28 Jun 2007