Change

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine."
Robert C. Gallagher

Cambodia
As some of you will have heard, things are changing in my life and, consequently, with the Ghostsigns Project. This coming Thursday I will be travelling to Cambodia to join my wife who is already there getting ready for our two year VSO placement. She will be working training teachers and, as it stands, I'm seeking opportunities once I arrive (contacts/leads more than welcome, we'll be based in Kratie Town). To document our experience and progress I have started a blog which can be read here.

The Change
This move means that my active involvement with the Ghostsigns Project is likely to become less frequent, especially in terms of maintaining this blog and handling submissions to the HAT archive. While Cambodia is significantly less developed than the UK, there is internet access and I will endeavour to put things up here as and when I can. I can still be emailed on sam@ghostsigns.co.uk but may take longer than usual to reply.

The Archive
The major shift as a result of my move is that the day to day management of the HAT archive will pass from me to HAT. We have been working together to ensure a smooth handover and are now in the final stages of doing so. The main difference of note to contributors is that new material coming into the archive will go through a different process which is explained in detail on the 'Getting Involved' page.

Reflections
In many ways the entire project has been a reaction to change, the changes in our 'street-scapes' that often lead to the loss of hand painted signs on walls. As a result of the project I believe we have changed the position of these Ghostsigns by not only saving them through photography but raising their profile in the wider public consciousness through the coverage that our efforts have received in the press.

The Numbers
Here are some of the numbers as they stand at this stage in the project:
4 - years since I took my first photo (see above)
12 - months from opening the archiving process to launching the archive
161 - photographers whose material appears in the archive
700 - signs documented in the archive (up from 600 at launch)
4,902 - photos in the Flickr Group (from 512 members)

Thanks
While I have personally dedicated much of my own time and energy to this project, it simply could not have happened without the support of the many people who have been involved along the way. I would like to thank you all, not least:

• Those who recognised I was on to something in the early days and encouraged me to stick with it.
• The History of Advertising Trust for accepting my proposal and supporting me through the development of the archive.
• Rank Hovis for their sponsorship of the project.
• The photographers whose generosity in gifting their images led to the rapid creation of what we have today.

Thanks again and look out for my despatches from Cambodia in the coming months...

Save the Arts

"This brilliantly dark little animation, by David Shrigley, for the 'Save the Arts' campaign raises awareness and encourages people to sign a petition against the proposed 25% cuts in the government funding of the arts. Outrageous! 

Each week, the work of a different artist will be released as part of the campaign. What a nice idea. Mark Wallinger is the next up. 

Be a sport and sign the petition here. And find out more here."

From Sell! Sell! blog.

One of the many blogs I subscribe to is that run by advertising agency Sell! Sell!, a great source of interesting and amusing material. Today they have kindly alerted all their readers to this campaign to protest the current and imminent cuts to arts funding in the UK. I thought their accompanying copy says it better than I could hence I've pasted it verbatim above.

Sign it NOW!

Summer 2010

Bile Beans: Balm Road, Leeds
Photographer: Richard Turner

In my speech at the HAT archive launch I said that I felt it would be just the start of an ongoing documentation of hand painted advertising of old. Sure enough, the archive and associated publicity surrounding its opening have led to many new contributors getting in touch with new and interesting material. There have also been new photos coming forward from photographers whose work helped to get things started in the first place.

In total I have worked through 100 new signs and these have now been added to the HAT online galleries bringing the total number in the collection up to 700. If you are keen to see just those new additions from the last few months then visit the online archive and use the search function (left hand side, low down) to find images tagged with Summer2010.

Here are some that I have taken a shine to or that are noteworthy for some reason, starting with the one above which adds to the existing well known Bile Beans sign from York. A third Bile Bean sign is here.


S.E. & A. Ridley: Bridge Street, Bridgnorth
Photographer: Keith Tomes

Behind the tree it says 'the oldest firm of seedsmen in Great Britain', quite a claim and giving some sense of the history associated with the company and the sign.


Peto Scott: Clayton Road, Bradford
Photographer: Richard Turner

You've got to hand it to the copywriter on this one for coming up with the line 'Really worth looking in to' for an advertisement for a TV.


Oscars: Salisbury Road, London
Photographer: Anonymous

The paint on this looks very fresh and it gives a sense of how the signs would once have looked when they were first painted. People often question the inclusion of these more recent signs in the collection but one day they too will be faded and ghostly and it will be interesting to have photos like this to compare with what it looks like in 25-50 years' time.


English Fancy Bazaar: The Old High Street, Folkestone
Photographer: Paul & Karen Rennie

I've written about this one before as it is the only ghostsigns I've heard of that is located inside a building. Read about it here.


Beechams Pills: Salisbury Street, Shotton
Photographer: Anonymous

This is part of a series and is noteworthy for the use of multiple gable ends in one location. They were all designed to be visible from the railway line.


Asylum: Gay's Hill, Bath
Photographer: Keith Roberts

Of it's time no doubt, I'll say no more...


Everybody's: Bishopton Lane, Stockton-on-Tees
Photographer: Brian Stubley

Long before Flickr, Facebook and the like, Everybody magazine was leading the way in social media by encouraging readers to share its contents.


Cigarettes: Chocolates & Confectionery, Worcester Road, Great Malvern
Photographer: Keith Tomes

Simple, beautiful type-driven signage at its best. Lovely!


J. Hepworth & Sons: Hepworth's Arcade, Hull
Photographer: Anonymous

Another classic piece of signwriting, the question is what was once located in the white space right in the middle?

Visit the archive and search for Summer2010 to see more of the 100 new additions. If you would like to send through any of your own material then simply follow the steps outlined on the 'Getting Involved' page.

London Mural Preservation Society

Garden Mural, Earlham Street, Stephen Pusey 1977
[Photo courtesy of London Mural Preservation Society]

At last week's Sign Design Society talk I met Ruth who has started an initiative aimed at raising awareness, researching, restoring and protecting the many hand painted murals that can be found dotted across the capital. These were generally initiated as community arts projects and Ruth has been tracking down the artists who once produced them, as well as making efforts to have them repainted and protected by councils.

As with Ghostsigns I think that these murals hold a place within people's collective conscious and I could quickly list at least three or four when I first came across the project: the Cable Street mural; the one just down from Dalston Junction; one at Highbury Grove; a brand new one on Kyverdale Road in Stoke Newington. Since I've started thinking about the project even more have come to mind and lots are captured in Ruth's sets on Flickr.

Ruth has already organised one walking tour which started in Kings Cross and more activities of this type are planned in the future. She is also keen for others to get involved as, just like the Ghostsigns Project, this really is a labour of love and it is much better to have a bunch of people helping than going it alone. Do get in touch:

• www.londonmuralpreservationsociety.co.uk
• Blog
• Facebook
• Flickr
• info@londonmuralpreservationsociety.com

Thumbnails Map

This is pretty cool (inspired from the comments on here), pulling the geotagged Creative Commons images out of the Ghostsigns Pool on Flickr. Thoughts, feedback, comments and suggestions welcomed (sam@ghostsigns.co.uk). Click the picture for the dynamic version (may take a few seconds to load) and find a Ghostsign near you...

Lincoln

Photo: Paul Turner

Another one bites the dust, this time for Blue Star/Regent in Lincoln. This sign had real star quality, if you'll excuse the pun, and featured from the Travel & Transport gallery in the series of postcards produced to celebrate the opening of the HAT archive. This is another piece of evidence for why the work we've done is important in keeping a record of what once was.

It looks to me as though the Portico people got annoyed by the more attractive old hand painted sign grabbing all the attention and so they took conclusive action. It would be interesting to know whether the covering could be removed to reveal the sign again once more, a pleasant surprise for some urban archaeologists in the future perhaps...


Photo: Matthew Campbell

I was alerted to this loss by Paul Turner who had used the Blue Star sign as inspiration for his own art work and here are the results. Pretty cool. In the second image, named 'Lincolnshire Landscape', you can see the sign in the top left of the image. The first one looks like it could be something from Cuba or Latin American revolutionary wall paintings...


Paul Turner


Paul Turner