Shop Signs

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

The Fantastic World of Shopfrontelegy

I’ve recently subscribed to Shopfrontelegy, a post-per-day blog from Vici MacDonald, the photographer and publisher behind Formerly. Given my recent interest in ‘fading fascias‘ the blog has been compulsive reading/viewing, with a collection of shopfront photography going back many years. It should probably come with a health warning about the hours you’re likely to lose […]

30 Jul 2014

Lyndsey Smith and the signs of Bath and Lewes

The Circulating Library sign from Bath is certainly one of the most popular and regularly photographed ghostsigns in the UK [See comments on this post for some more on this sign]. However, this is the first time I’ve seen it appear in watercolour. This painting by Lyndsey Smith was the runner up in the Bath […]

5 Sep 2012

American Roadside sign art from Bill Martin

Bennie Frazier’s retro fashion store in Sweetwater, Texas, is an unlikely home for a collection of original artworks from Bill Martin, late resident of the same town. These depict the colourful roadside signs that once characterised American highways, often using neon and sometimes as big as the buildings they were positioned on. These were referred […]

22 Jul 2012

Melbourne’s Milk Bars and the signs that adorned them

This is one of the shop signs found in this article which profiles the decline in Melbourne’s Milk Bars, retail outlets that once dotted the streets.  The article features a collection of 22 other shop signs and fascias and was spotted by Stef on the investigatory Finding the Radio Book blog.  The comments suggest that […]

28 Jun 2012

Then and now: shopfronts 1988 revisited

Via this review of the East End shopfronts exhibition happening now in Tower Hamlets, I came across this incredible site which is the work of Lady Lamo and her colleague Alabama.  It retraces the steps that Alan Dein took in 1988 and documents what has become of the shops he photographed.  The result is absolutely […]

3 Jun 2012