Nice signs
Public signs, where they are put, how many there are, and what they say can tell you a lot about the social demography of an area. We in the UK for example, have a peculiarly haphazard approach to signage in our public spaces. Often on a city street there are signs attached to lamp posts, and then someone else will come along and put up a sign post right next to it. The effect is sometimes of a metal forest where you can barely see the sky. Often these signs are completely unnecessary and contradict, or patronize the common sense of the every day public. We have signs that are so complicated to read as they are designed to flummox, frustrate, obfuscate – and eventually leave you with a parking fine. We have, for a country that bothers to put road directions up, probably the most appalling motorway signs in the known universe (apart from Oakland, California).
We have signs that are so complicated to read as they are designed to flummox, frustrate, obfuscate – and eventually leave you with a parking fine.
Our emotional relationship with public signage is complicated. Walking down a street, the signs become a narrative that can affect how we feel and what we think of. They can be funny, happy, sad, direct, terse, boring, and irrelevant.
Personally, I like (as does Homer Simpson) neon and/or flashing signs the best. They represent something night time and therefore something exciting. I also like signs that go a bit awry in there meaning, or are ambiguous, spelled incorrectly, or where piss poor and inexcusable punctuation change the meaning. You can see those signs in Neon Vibes and Wrong Way respectively.
The signs here are the rest. Just signs that caught my eye as pretty, or ugly, but especially noticeable in some way. They are not presented in any particular order, in fact they are presented entirely randomly. The quality of the images is dependent on the moment, good camera phone, bad camera phone, ‘proper’ camera, day, night. The are deliberately unceremonious at times due to the nature of the moment of capture. The signs are more of a scrapbook narrative than fine art photography and I’ve always intended them to be displayed as such.
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Yes, I like your new website. it reminds me of the anti-colouring book. Mrs p