Dave Arnold: Montreal's "Mr. Sign"
Short profile of signpainter Dave Arnold in the Montreal Gazette .
Signs in the news
Sorry for not posting* for a while.
Over at BlogTO, an article on Vintage signage in Toronto, with lots of glorious photos.
Various bloggers and news sites reported recently that the retro neon Yahoo billboard/sign in San Francisco is being removed.
The Museum of Vancouver recently launched its exhibition Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver. Here’s a blog entry on the MOV site about a local neon tube bender
And, finally, via Kristian Gravenor reports on an amazing cache of old photos from around Montréal by local resident (and German emigré) Alfred Bohns. Many of these shots include glimpses of signage around the city during the late 1950s.
*Hi Cory!
FILM SCREENING - MONTREAL 10/23/10
Delighted to announce I’ve just secured the Québec premiere of this amazing-looking new film. Details below.
‘The Visual Language of Herbert Matter’
A new documentary film by Reto Caduff
October 23rd 2010 at 7.30pm
Concordia University (Hall Building H-110)
1455 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal
A fascinating new documentary film on the life and work of Herbert Matter, the hugely influential mid-century artist, designer and photographer. The director, Reto Caduff, will be present for a Q&A after the screening.
Free and open to the public. More info here.
Sponsors: Concordia Signs Project; Dr Carole Brabant, Office of the
Vice President of Research & Graduate Studies, Concordia University;
ICOGRADA; Department of Communication Studies, Concordia
University; Department of Design & Computation Arts, Concordia
University.
Margaret Calvert on British Road Signs
Offbeat interview with Margaret Calvert who, in 1957, designed much of the roadsign system presently in use in Britain. Via boy-racer TV show Top Gear, of all things. (Thanks Kale!)
Signs (in six parts) - fascinating article in Slate magazine
From March 1-11, Slate magazine writer Julia Turner brings us a fascinating six-part article on signs.
Guaranteed!
UPDATE: More information on the restoration project from the Gazette. Here and here. Surprised to see that Heritage Montréal’s top ten list of things and places to save does not include the Farine Five Roses sign.
Montréal’s landmark Guaranteed Milk bottle has received an unexpected reprieve – and will soon have a fresh coat of paint. Score one for the city’s fast-disappearing industrial heritage, and bravo to Heritage Montreal
Photo by Flickr user • Christian & Cie •. CC 2007.
Logorama
Logorama is a new short film from H5. Looks amazing, and not wholly unexpected: H5 is the studio behind another brilliant video, Antoine Bardou-Jacquet and Ludovic Houplain’s The Child
Museum of Letters (Berlin)
I was a bit slow to discover this amazing place, but, gosh, what a place it is. The Museum of Letters in Berlin (site in German) and a Core77 showcase about the Museum, in English.
Two burning questions: a) how on earth did it get funded, and, b) how did they manage to collect all these examples? (For anyone who’s tried collecting old signs, you’ll know how difficult it can be: even if you happen to be there on the right day and the sign or demolition people are sympathetic, it’s still entirely possible to lose these things in dumpsters or scrap heaps, or for them to be spirited away, perhaps into someone’s private collection.)
Is that....? (Yup.)
Brilliant art/knitting intervention by Lauren Marsden . Bravo. (Image copyright Lauren Marsden. Via Craft: magazine.)
The Guaranteed Milk Bottle sign
I reported last year that the future of the tatty-looking Guaranteed Milk Bottle was far from certain, but here’s some heartening news, complete with dairy pun. From today’s Montreal Gazette. Photos of the milk bottle on Flickr. (Image:
