‘O to the Priory Church

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon on their latest Public Lettering walk, organised through the excellent St Bride Library events programme. As with my earlier walking tour in this part of London (Type Tour West) it started at the library but then took a different route to weave through Smithfield before ending up at the lettering- and tankard-fest that is the Fox & Anchor pub in Farringdon.

Phil Baines in action

Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon are extremely passionate about lettering on the streets, and jointly authored the excellent ‘Signs: lettering in the environment‘. This, and Phil’s previous public lettering walks, made them knowledgeable guides for the evening.

At the outset there was a clear distinction made between type and lettering, the former referring to mechanically reproducible letter forms as opposed to those created just once for a specific context. This was followed by some brief discussion about the grey area of hand-painted brand campaigns, such as those for Hovis, Gillette and Bovril, where the reproduction isn’t mechanical but strives towards this end. Perhaps there are mutual influences between lettering and type, with each able to borrow from the other. This would certainly make an interesting line of further investigation.

Red Black 88 Fleet Street

These tours should probably come with a health warning, namely that after going on them you won’t ever be able to get anywhere for stopping every two feet to admire or critique some form of public lettering. Even as we walked, Phil and Catherine were both spotting things they’d never noticed before such as this lovely roulette-esque 88 on Fleet Street (above). As with ghostsigns, it is these little details that all too often escape us until we take the time to walk slowly and appreciate the beauty, or otherwise, that exists around us. I won’t name names but Phil in particular had a few gripes with some of the more prominent groups of lettering that we found on the walk. Passion cuts both ways and it was great to see someone get fired up about some of the stuff that gets approved for public display.

Gas Cock Smithfields

Just like the Black Cat Cigarettes ghostsign, this Gas Cock palimpsest is one that I’ve cycled past many times without noticing. The area around Smithfields that the tour covered is extremely rich with a diverse and historically noteworthy set of public lettering. Phil and Catherine used this to tell a story of how the area developed both commercially and architecturally, with reference to the evolution of the lettering forms that accompanied this. I learned new terms such as the oxymoronic-sounding ‘curvilinear’, alongside other obscure facts such as there being no roads in the City of London (but lots of streets, walks, and squares).

St Bartholomew’s House, Fleet Street

[NB. The architect and sculptor recognised with these markings above the entrance to this building on Fleet Street, something you don't often see in stone work such as this.]

In spite of the almost Arctic weather conditions (take me back to Cambodia!) a great time was had by all and the pub finish was an opportunity to chat with other enthusiasts about all sorts of lettering, type and design topics. I hope that another tour is developed/runs soon, and one day I must get round to adding my own to the growing list of ghostsigns and lettering tours.

This has left me speechless. Sublime. Ridiculous. Unbelievable. Thank you to David, John and Danny for bringing the story of this piece of work to life through film. An incredible follow up to the last one.

Horn Please is a short film by directors Shantanu Suman and Istling Mirche, all about the bright and colourful hand-painted trucks that fuel India‘s massive goods transportation system. It is an insightful and captivating expose of this fascinating cultural phenomenon, touching on the history of truck painting in India, the significance of the designs and the lives of the painters and drivers. It also offers some differing points of view on the future of this specialised art form in the face of technological change.

There are obvious parallels with the painted modes of transport I found in Bangladesh last year and links to the HandPaintedType project which I am also a big fan of. A key distinction offered up in the film is the personal artistic nature of the truck paintings, versus the purely commercial motivations behind shop and other advertising signs. The pride and ownership of the truck paintings by the drivers themselves is something to behold, and it is this which brings such character and distinctive designs to the vehicles.

The film has been self-funded and has so far had two screenings in the USA. The trailer above gives a taster and if you are interested in seeing the full film then please do get in touch to enquire about how to set up future screenings. Thank you Shantanu for sharing this fantastic piece of work, I hope that it can find a way to make it over to the UK in the future. I also I can’t wait to visit India one day and see the trucks for myself…

Photo: Ronnie Hackston / History of Advertising Trust

Love Local Landmarks, an English Heritage-backed project, has been successful in gaining local listing status for two of Hackney’s most famous ghostsigns. The Blooms Piano sign (above) and the Waterman’s Fountain Pen sign on Stoke Newington Church Street have both been recognised for their “Aesthetic or Artistic” merit, and also for their historical significance. The impact of this listing is that the Council must now “think about their heritage significance when considering planning applications that affect them”.

This a fascinating outcome and the first concrete evidence I have seen of ghostsigns in the UK being explicitly listed in this way. Previously ‘protection‘ has been indirect, for example the buildings in Bath and the rejection of a planning application to cover a ghostsign in South London. The fact that this has happened in Hackney is not entirely unexpected, given one councillor’s encouraging words back in 2007. (There is perhaps less optimism in Lambeth…)

This now sets some precedent for future efforts to list ghostsigns, although the next round of surveying in Hackney may not be for another ten years or more. It is therefore over to other boroughs, and places outside of London, to determine if this success for the protection ‘lobby’ can be replicated elsewhere.

The complete list of new additions shows that the Hackney Peace Carnival Mural in Dalston has also been added, while a discussion of the project in general can be found on this page from the Hackney Society’s Spaces publication. The Hackney Council website has more information about local listings.

I would like to thank Brian Longman of the Love Local Landmarks project for his support in keeping me informed of their progress and providing the background documentation in support of this blog post.

Photo: State Library, New South Wales

While on my recent travels I was lucky enough to stumble upon The Greatest Wonder of the World exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The banner outside in big gold letters of various scripts obviously attracted my attention, and what a treat it was (and still is until 12th May 2013).

Photo: State Library, New South Wales

The exhibition pertains to the results of scanning many photographic plates that were commissioned by the renowned gold miner Bernhardt Holtermann. The images were taken in the 1870s and are an astonishing insight into the lives of those in New South Wales, especially the gold mining towns, at the time. Further, they are a remarkable testament to the skill of (wet plate) photographers Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss. In his forward to the brilliant free guide to the exhibition, Dr Alex Byrne refers to their “amazing detail, achieving resolution that is exceptional even today”.

Photo: State Library, New South Wales

I was obviously looking at the exhibition through my painted signs bias and was chuffed to find a huge number of images featuring the work of 19th Century Australian sign painters. One (above) even showed a couple of these gentlemen outside their sign painting shop. These signs add to many of the images’ ‘frontier town’ depictions and always manage to stand out in the streetscapes in which they are found.

Photo: State Library, New South Wales

I feel extremely lucky to have been in Sydney while this exhibition was showing and I wonder what other delights are taking place elsewhere without my knowledge. If you’re in town over the next week then make sure you catch it before it ends. There is an accompanying website where it is possible to see a selection of images and also order them to buy.

(PS. I’ve been having something of a break following the publication of my first book at the end of last year. Normal ghostsigns blogging service will be resumed upon my return to the UK in mid April, after my current travels. I am posting occasionally to Facebook and Twitter so don’t forget to friend/follow there for stuff in the meantime.)

Ghost sign hunting: the new fascination with old hand-painted advertising signs

In London, Detroit, Melbourne and other large cities around the world, people are on the hunt for ‘ghost signs’: traces of old advertising signs painted onto walls. Cameras and mobile devices in hand, they capture these traces and share them in their thousands on social media and, increasingly, in books. What makes these remnants so fascinating? Nostalgia? Urban change and its discontents? The appeal of a forgotten craft? The re-imagining of familiar places?

Exploring what ghost signs can tell us about how we live with and experience diverse cultures and histories of place and image, this seminar will feature expert international and local perspectives, plus open discussion, from:

Stephen Banham (Melbourne): Called a ‘typographic evangelist’ by London’s Eye magazine, Stephen Banham is the  founder of type studio Letterbox. His typographic explorations centre on the social and cultural aspects of letterforms. With over 17 publications on typography, Banham’s 2011 book, Characters: Cultural stories revealed through typography (www.characters.net.au)  focuses on Melbourne signs. Banham lectures at RMIT University and holds a Master of Design. In 2011 he was awarded a Creative Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria.

Sam Roberts (London): Sam Roberts is an authority on hand-painted signs. In 2010 he launched the History of Advertising Trust Ghostsigns Archive which records advertising on walls from across the UK and Ireland. Sam has written numerous articles for design, advertising and academic publications, as well as contributions to books about ghost signs from the USA and the UK. His Ghostsigns blog is here: www.ghostsigns.co.uk  In 2012 he published Hand-Painted Signs of Kratie, about the street advertising of Cambodia.

Stefan Schutt (Melbourne): Stefan is s a research program leader at Victoria University’s Centre for Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing, and the creator of an online archive of 10,000 abandoned documents from the former Melbourne signwriting firm Lewis & Skinner, which operated from the early 1900s to the 1960s (www.lewisandskinner.com) He also writes a blog about Melbourne ghost signs (http://findingtheradiobook.blogspot.com). Stefan holds a PhD from RMIT University and is a Berry Family Fellow with the State Library of Victoria.

Level 17 Artspace, VU City Flinders Campus, 300 Flinders St, Melbourne

Tuesday 12 March, 4.00pm – 7.00pm

Free – refreshments provided

RSVP: polly.probert@vu.edu.au by Thursday 7 March

Enquiries: 99194362

Here is John Shaw in Burton scraping the final bit of paint off the front of his house which revealed this home-made mural from 1953 celebrating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. A bit more about the discovery in this article from the Burton Mail.

Photo: Robert Lambie

The captions say it all really, note that the graffiti and the building it is on have both lasted longer than the enormous block of flats in the background. Found via Robert Lambie on uksignboards.com.

As a bit of a Dylan fan, and also one of hand-lettering, I was very pleased to see this video come through on the excellent Open Culture blog. It’s the work of Leandro Senna who wanted to step away from his computer and do something with his hands for a change. The result is 66 hand-lettered cards inspired by the well-known video for Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ (see below). More about the project and all of the original cards can be found on Leandro’s blog. A great piece of work.

(PS. In a related area, don’t forget about Woody Guthrie’s earlier vocation as a sign painter.)

Photo: Stefan Schutt

This and a number of other ghostsigns images from Sydney, Australia, are featured on the Finding the Radio Book blog. Stefan notes that he didn’t find a huge number on his visit there, many overlapping with those on the Preserve site. This could be due to the nature of the places visited i.e. more central and well travelled. Can any ‘locals’ verify this line of thought or have any insights into the prevalence of ghostsigns in places further away from the centre? This is certainly true of London where the density of fading hand-painted advertising increases dramatically outside of the West End and City of London.