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 forms when you start noticing the Ghostsigns around: "mention them to people and they'll look quizzical, but next time they see you, they'll have started to spot them". Pretty profound stuff there!

Here are some more scans (click the one below for larger, legible text, or see it on Flickr). The W.Chittock sign pictured is in Norwich and photographed by Keith Roberts.

Urban Archives on TV

Over in Seattle USA there was a feature on their evening magazine show featuring Tom Dobrowolsky of the Urban Archives project. Great to see more profile raising happening state-side...

Street Art

Specter by delete08

sarflondondunc, ever alert to the gradual shifts in our Ghostsigns landscape, alerted me to this new piece of street art positioned on the great gold leaf Boyd Pianos sign on Shacklewell Lane, Hackney. It's by the Canadian artist Specter and is part of the 'If I saw you in heaven' project. This attempts to "address the issue of homelessness and our apathy towards it" by presenting homeless people as "an image of humanity instead of a blight".

In talking about the positioning of her/his Specter states that a "renegade approach allows me to select specific locations that correlate with my artistic objective". The extent to which this is the case here is debatable and while I have put the question of why this location was chosen to Spector directly I haven't yet received a response.

While my views on organised efforts to protect Ghostsigns have reached a pragmatic conclusion that it is better to use our energy to photograph and research them, I do feel regret towards this and other overt actions that damage or destroy them, especially when this involves great examples such as this one.

***Note: 9th September 2010***

I contacted Specter about the piece and you can read a more detailed interview here, but these were the comments on this topic in particular:

"At its essence graffiti and street art is both the work by the artist and the public space in which it is put up. As an artist every wall in the public sphere is fair game. I go to great lengths scouting locations for my work and often look for hand-painted signs and walls to revive in the collective eye with my hand-painted installations. I have absolutely no remorse for any placement of my work. 

I choose that spot for a reason. I like to involve my pieces in a dialogue with their surroundings. The art is not just my painting it is the entire environment, the interaction of all parts. 

I identify very strongly with these old signs and feel that my additions are just part of the evolving cycle of their lives. My incorporations are changes to their ephemeral existence, often highlighting their under appreciated being."

SDS Flyer

There's now a flyer to accompany my forthcoming talk at the Sign Design Society (click here)

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. Caroline's photo below shows one in situ.


Photo: Caroline Bunford

The work is by ad agency CHI* and Gavin Lucas at Creative Review has suggested that these may have been inspired by the recent launch of the HAT archive and associated publicity. I would take things even further back than this, to 1938 in fact, when Watney's ran a campaign by ad agency Horrocks & Company. These early posts (here and here) give some more details about the campaign and the related competition. (Sorry for the image quality, I hadn't figured out my camera settings back then!)





I like the Anchor posters and they are much more visually striking than a lot of the drivel that gets plastered up around the place (but then I may be biased?). I only wish they'd taken things a step further and actually gone all the way to produce some hand painted signs (like Stella Artois) - there would have been a real authenticity to this, butter made by cows, hand painted signs painted by hand etc etc.

As an aside, I was thinking about animals in Ghostsigns and off the top of my head could only recall this lovely Bovril one in Leicester.

I wonder who will be next to use the hand painted form as a springboard into something new...


Photo: Amy Jane Barnes

*The creative team at CHI responsible for the Anchor work are Matt Collier and Wayne Robinson.