UK

Hemingway’s Ales (RIP)

This wonderful gable end sign for Hemingway’s Ales (Big Ben’s brand) ceased to exist as of 9th March 2011.  It was a truly remarkable ghostsign and featured as the backdrop for my interview with John Seargent in the piece broadcast on the One Show.  Incidentally I notice that it isn’t currently featured in the archive […]

15 Jan 2012

Stoke Newington Ghostsigns: History Pin Tour

After discovering the ‘Ghost Signs of Louisville’ Tour on History Pin I couldn’t resist having a go myself. The preliminary result is my first tour, ‘Stoke Newington Ghostsigns’.  I reckon the walk would take a couple of hours depending on how long you stop to photograph the 18 featured signs and former locations of signs. […]

18 Dec 2011

Ghost Signs of Louisville

Following last week’s post about Phil Baines’ London lettering tour I came across this ‘Ghost Signs of Louisville’ tour. It has been created by the University of Louisville Photographic Archive (in particular their Ghostsigns collection) using History Pin. I’m keeping a list of all the tours and trails I discover and these are listed in the […]

16 Dec 2011

Painted Ad Site

Wm Stage is back and this time he is taking his work online with the launch of his new Painted Ad website/blog. For those unfamiliar with Stage’s work then you should read a bit about his latest book, and also know that he authored the single most comprehensive volume about hand painted wall advertising back […]

10 Sep 2011

Signpainters Don’t Read Signs

Via their Facebook page, The Sign Painter Movie project alerted me to this rare, out of print book by Syl Ehr. Signpainters Don’t Read Signs is a great read and recounts umpteen anecdotes from Syl’s life as a jobbing signpainter in the USA (signwriter to those in the UK). These include incidents directly relating to […]

25 Aug 2011

The Painted Ad

Twenty-two years on from publishing the definitive Ghostsigns book, William Stage is back. ‘The Painted Ad: A Postcard Book of Vintage Brick Wall Signs’ builds on his own professional work in the postcard industry. He has pooled 25 of his best Ghostsigns images to create a book of cards which can be used to send […]

10 May 2011

Four days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Medical & Health gallery. More tomorrow.

15 Mar 2010

Nine days to launch…

Another video and image highlight as we count down to the launch of the archive on 19th March. These are from the Food & Drink gallery. More tomorrow.

10 Mar 2010

Project press (BBC Liverpool)

Caroline has secured the first press coverage for the archive and her work capturing signs in Liverpool.  Read the full story on the BBC Liverpool website. If anyone else has any contacts that would be interested in covering the 18th March launch then get in touch. [Update: Liverpool Ghost Signs book now published.]

15 Jan 2010

Draft Chapter (Food & Drink)

I’d love to get your feedback on a draft chapter for a possible book to accompany the archive. If this gets published then it will help raise funds to support the ongoing work of the History of Advertising Trust in this area. As usual please leave comments below or get in touch. NB. The images […]

8 Jan 2010

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

Black Cat Audio

Fascinating audio giving some history behind the Black Cat sign on Dingley Road, EC1.  This includes the observation that the growth of the cigarette industry in the early part of the last century was partly fuelled by the fact that soldiers fighting in the war were given fags in their rations. They then got hooked […]

27 Nov 2009

Ghostsigns (Most Wanted)

Here are six Flickr galleries of signs not yet ready for inclusion in the Ghostsigns Archive.  The archive is set to launch in January 2010. To date there have been almost 3,000 photos added to the Flickr group from over 300 photographers. Many of these have also been confirmed as gifts to the History of […]

26 Nov 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

Forms Received

Just a quick update on the progress of the archive. So far over 90 forms have been received from those who have been contributing to the Flickr group. Thank you all, the plan is for the online archive to be launched in January 2010. There’s still some way to go in order to ensure that […]

3 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

Bath Ghostsigns

A short visit to Bath and Bristol over the weekend allowed me to visit a handful of west country signs. These maybe aren’t the best examples from that part of the world but if you want to see more then I would recommend checking out Aztec West‘s collection over on Flickr (Bristol and Elsewhere). The […]

3 Nov 2009

Trades & Hospitality

I’ve been a little tied up with changing jobs and planning a wedding but am now back to blogging and pushing the archive forwards again. First up is the final montage in the current series, this time celebrating signs from two categories, Trades, Builders, Plumbers, Handymen and Hotels, Cafes, Restaurants.  These have been combined under […]

22 Oct 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

Ariel / Writers update

Photos courtesy of Graham Parker. Following some of the information provided by Jerry in the comments on this post about the Ariel/Writers sign in Kennington I’ve been sent a couple of fascinating pictures by Graham Parker. The first of these shows the front of the shop as it once was, although looking pretty closed down […]

6 Jul 2009

My Merton

Yelfy over at Faded London has just had a nice piece published by local magazine ‘My Merton’ which includes a picture of the full sign above with the covering billboard removed.  Also read Yelfy’s post about the article. Nice work Yelfy!

6 Jul 2009

Interesting Perspectives

These three images were submitted back to back into the ghostsigns pool being used to establish the archive. They stood out because of their very unique perspectives on three signs that are frequently photographed. For comparison I’ve included my own photos for two of them. This is michaelpickard‘s photo of the Donovan Bros sign from […]

27 Jun 2009

Odds & Sods

This montage is a little bit of a mixed bag featuring signs from the Razors & Stationery and Pets & Feed categories which also include some for paint and coal companies.  See more images in the Flickr group being used to set up the Ghost Signs Archive. Thanks again to everyone contributing their images, keep […]

23 Jun 2009