Posts Tagged ‘Signs’
“Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually”*…
Driving across America, one encounters a wide variety of cultures, landscapes, people, and animals. But the one consistent thing that will stay the same from Maine to California are the signs one passes on the highway. That’s because, as Jon Keegan explains, America’s roads and highways have a big, fat style guide…
First published in 1935, the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) “Manual on Uniform Traffic Control” (MUTCD), is a hefty tome consisting of close to 900 pages that contains the federal standards for all traffic safety signs, roadway markings and other “traffic control devices” that a driver on a road in the U.S. might encounter.
The MUTCD states that it “shall be recognized as the national standard for all traffic control devices installed on any street, highway, bikeway, or private road open to public travel”. Exact specifications for the font, size, spacing of letters, background colors, reflectivity, mounting location and orientation help ensure that traffic signs are consistently readable at a glance while driving anywhere in the U.S…
The remarkable– and enlightening– story: “The Style Guide for America’s Highways: The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices,” from @jonkeegan. TotH to @kottke.
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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As we read the signs, we might send elegantly-designed birthday greetings to Walter de Silva; he was born on this date in 1951. A car designer and automotive executive, he began as a designer at Fiat in 1972, then went on to lead design at Alfa Romeo, SEAT, Audi, and finally Volkswagen Group– where, in 2007, he became Chairman.
“Water sustains all”*…
… that includes the massive data centers on which our on-line lives are increasingly dependent… which could be problematic…
Drought conditions are worsening in the U.S., and that is having an outsized impact on the real estate that houses the internet.
Data centers generate massive amounts of heat through their servers because of the enormous amount of power they use. Water is the cheapest and most common method used to cool the centers.
In just one day, the average data center could use 300,000 gallons of water to cool itself — the same water consumption as 100,000 homes, according to researchers at Virginia Tech who also estimated that one in five data centers draws water from stressed watersheds mostly in the west.
“There is, without a doubt, risk if you’re dependent on water,” said Kyle Myers, vice president of environmental health, safety & sustainability at CyrusOne, which owns and operates over 40 data centers in North America, Europe, and South America. “These data centers are set up to operate 20 years, so what is it going to look like in 2040 here, right?”…
Data centers are scrambling to find sustainable solutions: “Microsoft, Meta and others face rising drought risk to their data centers,” from @CNBCtech.
See also: “The Secret Cost of Google’s Data Centers: Billions of Gallons of Water to Cool Servers” (source of the image above).
* Thales of Miletus
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As we contemplate conservation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1910 that French chemist, engineer, and inventor Georges Claude switched on the first public display of neon lights– two large (39 foot long), bright red neon tubes– at the Paris Motor Show. Over the next decade, Claude lit much of Paris. Neon came to America in 1923 when Earl Anthony purchased signage from Claude, then transported it to Los Angeles, where Anthony installed it at his Packard dealership… and (literally) stopped traffic.
While the market for neon lighting in outdoor advertising signage has declined since the mid twentieth century (in many instances replaced by flexible LEDs, which use less electricity), in recent decades neon lighting has been used consciously in art, both in individual objects and integrated into architecture (or as below, landscape).
Long Now Foundation Fellow Alicia Eggert‘s neon piece: more details
“I’ve always lived by signs”*…
Justin McElroy, Municipal Affairs Reporter for CBC Vancouver, has taken to Twitter to perform an important public service…
I’ve identified 185 communities in the province of British Columbia that have welcome signs.
And in this thread, I’m going to rank every single one.
You can follow the thread, which is underway now: Rating the Welcome Signs of British Columbia, from @j_mcelroy. Via @broderick.
* Iris Murdoch, Henry and Cato
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As we contemplate connoisseurship, we might might send significant birthday greetings to a master of a different kind of sign, William Lilly; he was born on this date in 1602 (O.S.). Described as a genius at something “that modern mainstream opinion has since decided cannot be done at all,” he was an astrologer who was powerfully influential in his own time and hugely impactful on the future course of Western astrological tradition.
Lilly’s autobiography, published towards the end of his life in 1681, at the request of his patron Elias Ashmole, gives candid accounts of the political events of his era, and biographical details of contemporaries that are unavailable elsewhere. It was described, in the late 18th century, as “one of the most entertaining narratives in our language”, in particular for the historical portrayal it leaves of men like John Dee, Simon Forman, John Booker, Edward Kelley, including a whimsical first meeting of John Napier and Henry Briggs, respective co-inventors of the logarithm and Briggsian logarithms, and for its curious tales about the effects of crystals and the appearance of Queen Mab. In it, Lilly describes the friendly support of Oliver Cromwell during a period in which he faced prosecution for issuing political astrological predictions. He also writes about the 1666 Great Fire of London, and how he was brought before the committee investigating the cause of the fire, being suspected of involvement because of his publication of images, 15 years earlier, which depicted a city in flames surrounded by coffins… To his supporters he was an “English Merlin”; to his detractors he was a “juggling wizard and imposter.”…
Wikipedia
“My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never”*…
Duke Ellington eating dinner with his wife, Bea Ellington, and a friend (source: Library of Congress)
While Duke Ellington is rightly revered as the extraordinary musician and composer that he was, he was known among his friends almost as prominently for his appetites. As frequent sideman Tricky Sam Nanton said, “he’s a genius, all right, but Jesus, how he eats!”
Ellington was happy to share his gourmand enthusiasms. In a 1944 interview (recounted in Lapham’s Quarterly) he reminisces…
There’s a place in Chicago, the Southway Hotel, that’s got the best cinnamon rolls and the best filet mignon in the world. Then there’s Ivy Anderson’s chicken shack in Los Angeles, where they have hot biscuits with honey and very fine chicken-liver omelets. In New Orleans there’s gumbo filé. I like it so well that I always take a pail of it out with me when I leave. In New York I send over to the Turf Restaurant at Forty-ninth and Broadway a couple of times a week to get their broiled lamb chops. I guess I’m a little freakish with lamb chops. I prefer to eat them in the dressing room, where I have plenty of room and can really let myself go. In Washington, at Harrison’s, they have deviled crab and Virginia ham. They’re terrific things. On the Île-de-France, when we went to Europe, they had the best crêpes Suzette in the world, and it took a dozen at a time to satisfy me. The Café Royal, in the Hague, has the best hors d’oeuvres in the world—eighty-five different kinds, and it takes a long time to eat some of each. There’s a place in Paris that has the best octopus soup. And oh, my, the smorgasbord in Sweden! At Old Orchard Beach, Maine, I got the reputation of eating more hot dogs than any man in America. A Mrs. Wagner there makes a toasted bun that’s the best of its kind in America. She has a toasted bun, then a slice of onion, then a hamburger, then a tomato, then melted cheese, then another hamburger, then a slice of onion, more cheese, more tomato, and then the other side of the bun. Her hot dogs have two dogs to a bun. I ate thirty-two one night…
More gustatory goodness in “Duke Ellington’s Diet“; and for a bonus treat, read this 1944 New Yorker profile of Ellington.
* Duke Ellington
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As we Take the A Train, we might recall that it was on this date in 1937 that the first animated-cartoon electric sign display in the U.S. was lit by its designer, Douglas Leigh, on the front of a building on Broadway in Times Square. It used 2,000 bulbs, and its four-minute show included a cavorting horse a ball tossing cats. Leigh, who went on to design such famous billboards as the Eight O’Clock Coffee sign (with a coffee pot that was, literally, steaming) and the Camel Cigarette sign (that blew smoke rings), became know as “The Man Who Lit Up New York.” While his signs are now gone, his lighting of the Empire State Building (Leigh was also a pioneer in the illumination of city skylines and buildings) survives; and his large illuminated snowflake is still hung at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street every holiday season.
Douglas Leigh and his Times Square
“I’ve always thought that parallel parking was my main talent.”*…
Culver City, California
When Nikki Sylianteng got a $95 parking ticket last winter, she realized that she was dealing with much more than a fine: she was dealing with a design problem.
“It was my fault,” she admits. She says she had been “so happy to find a parking spot,” she didn’t read the sign carefully enough. But, Sylianteng also felt like she shouldn’t have had to read the sign so carefully.
She suspected there were many parking offenders like her out there, who wanted to obey the law but had trouble discerning what that law was. Cities could make it easier for them, and improve parking compliance, just by making the parking signs clearer. As far as she could see, she was surrounded by a pretty confusing system of signage.
So, she decided to fix it.
She didn’t do this by fighting the ticket, nor by running for city council. Instead, Sylianteng committed act of guerilla civic design, which shocked the gears of municipal bureaucracy into motion. Someday, when better signage comes to a curb near you, you’ll have to thank Nikki…
More of the story– and more examples of Nikki’s work– at “A Designer’s War on Misleading Parking Signs,” and at her site, To Park or Not to Park. (Culver City image via Jalopnik.)
* Calvin Trillin
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As we take the bus, we might send honorable birthday greetings to William McKinley; he was born on this date in 1843. The 25th President of the U.S., McKinley was the first president to ride in an automobile (a Stanley Steamer, a steam-engine-powered car built in the late 1890s by brothers Francis and Freelan Stanley). McKinley was also the last President to have served in the Civil War, and the third President (after Lincoln and Garfield) to be assassinated (though some believed Zachary Taylor, who died in office, to have been poisoned).
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