Fading painted signs

Press

Fading ampersand, painted on brick — Today I visited D&AD’s New Blood exhibit and got chatting to Craig Palmer who had created a ‘zine’ all about the humble ampersand. It was a little lesson in the history of type with Craig telling me that the word is a conjunction (or ‘mondegreen‘ […]

London’s Lonely Ampersand

This entry was posted in Signs of Note and tagged Ampersand Craig Palmer CTV Daniele Hamamdjian Ghostsigns London Press TV UK on July 3, 2014 by Sam Roberts

I took N Quentin Woolf of Londonist Out Loud on a portion of my Ghostsigns Walking Tour in Stoke Newington. The result is this podcast (here on itunes, and here on Londonist) which we managed to record despite the myriad noises and distractions on the […]

Ghostsigns on Londonist Out Loud

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Derelict London Interview London Londonist Londonist Out Loud N Quentin Woolf N16 Podcast Press Radio Sam Roberts Stoke Newington Tours UK on June 14, 2014 by Sam Roberts

Squares showing various pieces of fading hand-painted advertising on walls — A new magazine, The Simple Things, features a great article about Ghostsigns. Written by Kirsten Elliott of Akeman Press in Bath, there are also a couple of wise words and a bunch of photos from yours truly. Regular readers may recall a couple of fascinating photos […]

Ghostsigns in The Simple Things magazine

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Akeman Press Future Publishing Kirsten Elliott Press Print Sam Roberts The Simple Things on September 8, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Hand painted sign on a wall advertising Smiths Grand Teas — This photo by John Vince features in a short piece he’s written on ghostsigns for the Countryman. The sign, from Leicestershire, also features in the History of Advertising Trust Ghostsigns Archive and has the wonderful ‘act local’ line of “Carefully blended to suit the water of […]

Ghostsigns and Smiths Grand Teas in the Countryman

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Countryman John Vince Leicestershire Oakham Press Print Rutland Smiths Grand Teas Tea on September 1, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Hand painted sign in sky blue on a building advertising Radio 2KY — I’ve just come across this article in ProDesign magazine which profiles Mark Spurgeon of the Preserve project in New Zealand. I’ve written about Mark’s work before and how there are parallels with my own interest in ghostsigns. This article reinforces those similarities. You can visit […]

Mark Spurgeon’s Preserve project in ProDesign

This entry was posted in Sign Collections Sign Initiatives Signs in Media and tagged Mark Spurgeon New Zealand Preserve Press Print ProDesign on August 3, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Sinc Mediums Britain Yorkshire Ghostsign as featured in Down Your Way magazine — Yorkshire is the focus for this three page spread on ghostsigns in Down Your Way magazine from earlier this year. Thank you to Mark Whitley of Country Publications for allowing me to republish this piece here.

Ghostsigns in ‘Down Your Way’ magazine

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Article Country Publications Down Your Way Mark Whitley Press Print Roy Hampson UK Yorkshire on July 10, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Puck Match Bryant and May ghostsign Leeds — Laura Carletti and I have written a short paper for History Workshop Online. This builds on the survey and offers some reflections on the development of the archive in 2009-10.

Digital Engagement & the Ghostsigns Archive: History Workshop Article

This entry was posted in Sign Collections Sign Initiatives Signs in Media and tagged Archive Ghostsigns Community HAT HWO Press Survey on April 4, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Parkinsons Pills press cutting Briston — Photo: Parkinsons of Burnley This is a great set of photos for the Parkinsons Pills brand from a site dedicated to the company. A couple of these appear in the archive (here and here) but the others are new to me, including one where the […]

Parkinsons Pills signs from across the UK: ‘They will buck ...

This entry was posted in Individual Signs and tagged Burnley Ghostsigns Parkinsons Press Restoration UK on March 23, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Young Schmuck Fine Wines Liquors and Cigars — Great radio interview with Frank talking about his work, his book and the topic in general. (A brief mention of this blog shortly after 12 minutes – thanks Frank!)

Frank Jump on 90.7 WFUD

This entry was posted in Interviews and tagged Frank Jump New York Press Radio USA on February 19, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Painter in the New York sky — Following Frank’s more recent appearance I came across this radio interview with Colossal Media which I missed in February last year. The slideshow above accompanies the full story and audio download on the WNYC website. More posts from the Ghostsigns blog about Colossal Media here, […]

On Air: Colossal Media Radio Interview

This entry was posted in Interviews and tagged Colossal Media Modern Brickads New York Press Radio USA Video on January 15, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Belgravia Horse Infirmary ghostsign restoration — After Before (2006/7) News in this week is that a restoration effort has been undertaken in the heart of London’s Belgravia. It has been directed at what was once a very faded sign for a horse infirmary (see two more of my pictures from c.2006/7 […]

Belgravia Ghostsign Restored

This entry was posted in Individual Signs Related Work and tagged London Press Print Restoration UK on January 15, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Uptown Stables Fading Ad by Frank Jump — Listen to Fading Ads on the Leonard Lopate Show by Wnyc, New York Public Radio. A 15 minute interview discussing the ‘Fading Ads of New York City’ book with an accompanying slideshow.

Frank Jump on the Leonard Lopate Show

This entry was posted in Sign Folk Signs in Media and tagged Books Fading Ad Frank Jump Interview Leonard Lopate New York New York Public Radio People Press Radio USA WNYC on January 11, 2012 by Sam Roberts

Biochemist Ghostsigns article — Press coverage for the project sometimes throws up surprises and I was delighted to see that the October 2011 edition of The Biochemist labelled my site as among the ‘Best of the Web’. Katy’s photo once again caught the editor’s eyes in this very nice […]

Ghostsigns in The Biochemist

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Archive Press Print on November 25, 2011 by Sam Roberts

Current Archaeology Ghostsigns Oddsoc — The Ghostsigns Project has officially been classified as an Odd Soc (odd society) in this nice little column in Current Archaeology magazine. Click the image above an zoom in for the full size scan below or follow this link to Flickr.

Odd Soc

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Archive Press Print on December 4, 2010 by Sam Roberts

The Summer 2010 issue of Ultrabold, the journal of the St Bride Library, features an article by me on the launch of the HAT Ghostsigns Archive. You can view a pdf here, or subscribe to the journal by becoming a friend of St Bride here. […]

Ultrabold, Summer 2010

This entry was posted in Sign Initiatives Signs in Media and tagged Archive Press Print on October 8, 2010 by Sam Roberts

Telegraph 22nd August 2010 First Page — 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, […]

Telegraph

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Press Print on August 22, 2010 by Sam Roberts

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…

Urban Archives on TV

This entry was posted in Interviews Related Work and tagged Interview London Press Project Seattle Tom Dobrowolsky TV UK Urban Archives USA on August 19, 2010 by Sam Roberts

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 […]

Anchor

This entry was posted in Inspired by Signs Signs in Media and tagged Bovril Contemporary Issues Event Modern Brickads People Press Print Related and Random Watneys on August 5, 2010 by Sam Roberts

I’ve just got round to posting the proper quality copies of the two biggest pieces of BBC coverage of the project. These are the One Show piece with correctly synched audio (below) and, more recently, the piece on BBC Radio 4’s Making History program.

BBC Ghostsigns

This entry was posted in Interviews and tagged Archive Bath BBC Press Radio TV Video on July 12, 2010 by Sam Roberts

> The latest issue of ARC magazine from the Society of Archivists features this two page article on the Ghostsigns Project.

ARC Magazine

This entry was posted in Sign Initiatives Signs in Media and tagged Archive Press Print on July 8, 2010 by Sam Roberts

Circulating Library and Reading Room Bath — Circulating Library Press interest in the project continues and on Thursday last week I travelled to Bath to be interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 program Making History. The resulting feature will be broadcast at 3.00pm on Tuesday, 15th June and will also be available […]

Making History in Bath

This entry was posted in Sign Collections Signs in Media and tagged Archive Bath BBC Press Radio on June 6, 2010 by Sam Roberts

BBC Radio Nottingham — This short piece was broadcast on BBC Radio Nottingham on the morning of 18th May 2010. It features an interview with historyanorak and was accompanied by a photo feature on their website. Coming soon will be another piece on radio, this time BBC Radio 4 […]

BBC Radio Nottingham

This entry was posted in Interviews and tagged Archive Press Radio on June 4, 2010 by Sam Roberts

Design Week Ghostsigns Article David Bernstein — Nice piece from David Bernstein published in Design Week, 22nd April 2010, full text pasted below. PRIVATE VIEW APRIL 2010 “‘There stands the ghost of a great name’ wrote Lucan, the Roman poet. He was referring to Pompey. Not the football club but the general […]

Design Week

This entry was posted in Signs in Media and tagged Archive Press Print on May 1, 2010 by Sam Roberts

[Update: better quality video here.] Here’s the piece that was broadcast on the One Show, BBC1, on 12th April 2010. To see it full screen on youtube click here. On the same day, by pure coincidence, the Guardian did a write-up in their G2 section. […]

One Show & the Guardian

This entry was posted in Interviews and tagged Archive Press Print TV Video on April 25, 2010 by Sam Roberts