Modern Brickads

Hand-painted Asahi beer sign at the Earl of Portobello

Regular correspondent Ross Corben sent me this newly painted sign for Asahi beer on the side of the Earl of Portobello pub in West London (close up below). It’s an unusual brand for a piece of hand-painted advertising in my opinion, at least in light of the synergy between other users of the medium such as Jack […]

24 Nov 2012
Signpainters of Detroit

Detroit blogger John Carlisle showcases some of the hand painted signs on walls from the motor city and meets the men who make them. It is interesting that many of them only use the signpainting to supplement their incomes or to support their other artistic endeavours. Note the slogan on the picture above, taken from […]

27 Jul 2012
Hand-Painted Gambia (and Jamaican Bonus)

A recent trip to a wedding in The Gambia, West Africa, was another piece of delight for a hand painted signage enthusiast like me. In a similar fashion to my February visit to Bangladesh I was often distracted by the variety of forms found in the small part of the country we visited. Also like […]

27 May 2012
On Air: Colossal Media Radio Interview

Following Frank’s more recent appearance I came across this radio interview with Colossal Media which I missed in February last year. The slideshow above accompanies the full story and audio download on the WNYC website. More posts from the Ghostsigns blog about Colossal Media here, it’s great to see them going from strength to strength.

15 Jan 2012
Ghostsigns World Tour

Perhaps being in Cambodia has sensitised me to the world of Ghostsigns beyond my home shores. Or maybe awareness of the project has encouraged those from around the world to make contact. Whatever it is, I thought it was time for a round-up of what’s landed in my inbox and surfaced on my internet radar […]

21 Jul 2011
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
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
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
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
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
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
New Painted Signs in Sussex

Through the D&AD blog I was alerted to this campaign by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership which has added hand painted signs to their TV ‘commercial’. These painted elements were done by Aroe and this one in particular is pretty big. I wonder if the currently vogue for street art might lead to more collaborations […]

2 Mar 2010
Rage Factor

This campaign now has hand painted signs to support it! The objective is to ‘steal’ the Christmas number one spot from this year’s X-Factor winner and here are the painters at work spreading the message. If you want to help with the effort then for just 29p you can do your bit to crack Cowell […]

15 Dec 2009
Chatting with the Ritual Project

I did an interview with the New York project as it reaches its climax. Read it in full here and find out more about their work here.

1 Dec 2009
Ritual Project Update

The project is into its final few days and there are some interesting snippets of the painters at work, both close up and in time lapse. Here are a few highlights, more here and here. I’d personally like to see some longer clips with perhaps some discussion from the painters about the techniques employed. I […]

26 Nov 2009
The Ritual Project

Stella Artois and Colossal Media are collaborating in New York to use hand painted advertising over 21 days to demonstrate the ‘ritual’ of pouring a glass of Stella. This ritual involves nine steps and by day 11 they’re on step three, mainly due to adverse weather conditions. It’s going to be a busy ten days […]

18 Nov 2009
Concord Painting

The ever prolific Frank Jump who blogs on ghostsigns over in New York has uncovered a nice piece of history having been contacted by a relative of someone who painted this sign [update: link no longer available] over there. It turns out that the company that he worked for (Concord Painting) is still in business and […]

12 Nov 2009
The Cobbled Yard

I was tipped off about this new hand painted sign and got these photos some time ago. The Cobbled Yard sells all sorts of antiques so it’s quite fitting that they should use traditional signwriting to tout their wares. I have been given the contact details of the signwriter who produced this so hope to […]

3 Nov 2009
Jack Daniels Update

Sheffield, Photo by Nicky Roberts My Aunt captured the above picture in Sheffield recently (Westfield Terrace, just off West Stand). This adds to the growing number of locations in this nationwide campaign by Jack Daniels (see previous posts). Photos of those discovered so far are below (Brighton, Bristol, Leicester & Newcastle), and, awaiting photographic evidence, […]

29 Apr 2009
Colossal Media & Gentrification

Picked this up over on psfk where they reckon this is an ad for Colossal Media. The observations on gentrification could easily apply in London and perhaps many other cities around the world.

17 Feb 2009
Colossal Media Update

I’ve written lots about Colossal Media in the past but a visit to their website today revealed a whole load of new content including lots of videos, mainly time-lapses of their work being painted but also this new promotional trailer. Although it features some of their most recent work I still think the old one is […]

1 Dec 2008
Diesel Wall

The fashion brand Diesel have picked up on the outdoor, big wall format with a creatively focussed competition, Diesel Wall, to fill the spaces they’ve booked on prominent locations in Manchester, New York, Zurich and Barcelona. The underlying premise is a revolt against the ‘pollution’ of public space with commercial messages by providing a canvass […]

28 Apr 2008
Jack Daniel’s (Brighton)

Following my uncle’s discoveries in Newcastle I spotted two more Jack Daniel’s faux Ghost Signs on my Bank holiday visit to Brighton. The one on the white background is right there as soon as you come out of the station and the one on the red background is on the road that goes to Hove. […]

25 Mar 2008
Jerry Johnson

© Sign painted and photo taken by Jerry Johnson Frank Jump over in NYC has just posted a collection of ten outstanding images from the work of experience signwriter (or “wall dog” in USA) Jerry Johnson. Some of these are genuine pieces of advertising and some, like the one pictured, are spoofs. The craftsmanship, or […]

23 Feb 2008