Posts Tagged ‘signage’
“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.
“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
“To face the sunlight again, that’s clearly trouble. I like the city better when the neon lights are going”*…
Like scenes from a modern noir film, Frank Bohbot’s images of New York City conjure up allure and heartbreak. The Paris-born photographer spent 18 months capturing nighttime scenes across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and has compiled them into a project dubbed Light On.
Bohbot’s work is first and foremost a study in signage, and features many instantly-recognizable storefronts including Katz’s Deli and the Sunshine Cinema, but pay attention to each frame’s shadows and open space. Light On isn’t just focused with dazzling neon—it’s also a study of snowstorms, puddles, fire escapes, and, occasionally, people. It’s as if you gave William Eggleston an unlimited Metrocard and forced him to stay up all night.
There are jazz clubs, delis, porn shops, theaters, and a wide variety of bars featured in his photographs, each captured after the sun has gone down and only moody, unnatural light remains…
More at “Photos Bring NYC’s Neon Nights To Life,” and at Bohbot’s website.
* Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
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As we refuse to go gentle into that good night, we might recall that it was on this date in 1891 that Carnegie Hall was officially opened. First know simply as “Music Hall,” it was formally named for it’s funder, Andrew Carnegie, in 1893.
Q: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
A: Practice, practice practice…
Carnegie Hall in 1895
Carnegie Hall today
Back to the streets…
Following earlier assays of street signage from all over (e.g., here and here), the rubber finally meets the road itself. Readers, the Toynbee Tile…
Franklin Square, Washington, DC (source)
Since the 1980s, several hundred tiles– all roughly the size of an American state license plate, and all bearing roughly the message above– have been found embedded in the pavement of roads in streets in two dozen major U.S. cities and four South American capitals.
There’s no consensus among scholars of the tiles as to their reference or meaning. It’s pretty widely held that the “Toynbee” reference is to historian Arnold Toynbee, perhaps to a passage (in Experiences):
Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into ‘soul’ and ‘body’ is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body… Someone who accepts – as I myself do, taking it on trust – the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more ‘scientifically’ if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit.
Others suggest that the tiles allude to Ray Bradbury’s story “The Toynbee Convector,” to Arthur C. Clarke’s story “Jupiter V,” or– perhaps, given the direct 2001 reference, most likely– to Stanley Kubrick’s film (in which, readers will recall, hibernating astronauts who had secret training were to be revived upon arrival on Jupiter).
And while there’s no agreement on the identity of the tiler, a majority of enthusiasts believe that “he” is from Philadelphia– both because the City of Brotherly Love hosts the highest concentration of the plaques and because a collection of tiles found there deviate from the norm to ascribe a plot to John S. Knight (of Knight-Ridder, the erst-while newspaper publishers), the Mafia, and others.
See a (nearly) complete list of tiles and their locations here, a set of photos here, and learn how they are implanted here. Visit this site for a peek at a Sundance award-winning documentary on the Tiles.
UPDATE: Further to earlier posts on Lorem Ipsum and it’s bastard children, Bacon Ipsum and Hipster Ipsum, more grievous greeking: Velo Ipsum (for bicycling enthusiasts), and for the reportorially-inclined, Journo Ipsum.
As we watch where we’re walking, we might recall that it was on this date in 1504 that Michelangelo’s 17-foot-tall marble David was unveiled in a public square outside the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence.
From the Department of Superfluous Redundancy…
From Damn Cool Pictures, “50 Completely Useless Signs“…
More at Damn Cool Pictures.
As we await further instructions, we might recall that it was on this date in 1940 that the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short “A Wild Hare”– the first “official” Bugs Bunny cartoon– premiered (though readers will recall that Bugs [or at least, his prototype] made his inaugural screen appearance two years earlier). Directed by Tex Avery, “A Wild Hare” was nominated for an Academy Award.
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