Press

London’s Lonely Ampersand

Today I visited D&AD’s New Blood exhibit and got chatting to Craig Palmer who had created a ‘zine’ all about the humble ampersand. It was a little lesson in the history of type with Craig telling me that the word is a conjunction (or ‘mondegreen‘ to give it its technical name) of four words. These […]

3 Jul 2014

Ghostsigns on Londonist Out Loud

I took N Quentin Woolf of Londonist Out Loud on a portion of my Ghostsigns Walking Tour in Stoke Newington. The result is this podcast (here on itunes, and here on Londonist) which we managed to record despite the myriad noises and distractions on the street. Thanks Quentin for putting it together.

14 Jun 2014

Ghostsigns in The Simple Things magazine

A new magazine, The Simple Things, features a great article about Ghostsigns. Written by Kirsten Elliott of Akeman Press in Bath, there are also a couple of wise words and a bunch of photos from yours truly. Regular readers may recall a couple of fascinating photos that Kirsten recently provided to this blog and there is […]

8 Sep 2012

Ghostsigns and Smiths Grand Teas in the Countryman

This photo by John Vince features in a short piece he’s written on ghostsigns for the Countryman. The sign, from Leicestershire, also features in the History of Advertising Trust Ghostsigns Archive and has the wonderful ‘act local’ line of “Carefully blended to suit the water of the district”. It also has a remarkably diverse set of […]

1 Sep 2012

Mark Spurgeon’s Preserve project in ProDesign

I’ve just come across this article in ProDesign magazine which profiles Mark Spurgeon of the Preserve project in New Zealand. I’ve written about Mark’s work before and how there are parallels with my own interest in ghostsigns.  This article reinforces those similarities. You can visit Mark’s site at www.preserve.co.nz, it is a real treasure trove […]

3 Aug 2012

Ghostsigns in ‘Down Your Way’ magazine

Yorkshire is the focus for this three page spread on ghostsigns in Down Your Way magazine from earlier this year.  Thank you to Mark Whitley of Country Publications for allowing me to republish this piece here.

10 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

Parkinsons Pills signs from across the UK: ‘They will buck you up’!

This is a great set of photos for the Parkinsons Pills brand from a site dedicated to the company.  A couple of these appear in the archive but the others are new to me, including one where the photographer claims to have got bored part way through restoring it.  A follow up post reveals this […]

23 Mar 2012

Frank Jump on 90.7 WFUD

Great radio interview with Frank talking about his work, his book and the topic in general.  (A brief mention of this blog shortly after 12 minutes – thanks Frank!)

19 Feb 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

Belgravia Ghost Sign Restored

Before (2006/7) After News in this week is that a restoration effort has been undertaken in the heart of London’s Belgravia.  It has been directed at what was once a very faded sign for a horse infirmary (see two more of my pictures from c.2006/7 below).  It was instigated by Belgravia Garage, as the infirmary sign […]

15 Jan 2012

Frank Jump on the Leonard Lopate Show

Listen to Fading Ads on the Leonard Lopate Show by Wnyc, New York Public Radio.  A 15 minute interview discussing the ‘Fading Ads of New York City’.

11 Jan 2012

Ghostsigns in The Biochemist

Press coverage for the project sometimes throws up surprises and I was delighted to see that the October 2011 edition of The Biochemist labelled my site as among the ‘Best of the Web’. Katy’s photo once again caught the editor’s eyes in this very nice write up. Thank you to Executive Editor Mark Burgess at […]

25 Nov 2011

Ultrabold, Summer 2010

The Summer 2010 issue of Ultrabold, the journal of the St Bride Library, features an article by me on the launch of the HAT Ghostsigns Archive. You can view a pdf here, or subscribe to the journal by becoming a friend of St Bride here. My previous Ultrabold article can be found here with other […]

8 Oct 2010

Telegraph

A nice feature in this Sunday’s Telegraph documents many jobs that are gradually disappearing, including that of the advertising signwriter alongside rag and bone men, matchgirls and airbrush artists (pre-photoshop) among others. Written by Peter Lyle the signwriting piece focuses on Wayne Tanswell, contemporary signwriter, and a brief quote from me about the habit that […]

22 Aug 2010

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

BBC Ghostsigns

I’ve just got round to posting the proper quality copies of the two biggest pieces of BBC coverage of the project.  These are the One Show piece with correctly synched audio (below) and, more recently, the piece on BBC Radio 4’s Making History program. In print, there was this in the Guardian.

12 Jul 2010

ARC Magazine

> The latest issue of ARC magazine from the Society of Archivists features this two page article on the Ghostsigns Project.

8 Jul 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

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

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

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

Jericho, Oxford Update

It seems that the threat to a couple of iconic signs in Oxford has passed, for the time being (see the story in the Oxford Mail). Following the tip off from Isisbridge late last year I talked briefly about the signs on the old blog. The lobby that galvanised around preserving the original building appears to […]

10 Feb 2010