Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Art of Signage


Signage is a visual graphic that is used to display a certain amount of information to a certain group of people. Signs are things that we see everyday and often don’t realize unless we are looking for something. Todays signs although some are beautiful they have left the golden age of signage behind. That golden age for signs that are considered vintage today is the 1940’s 1950’s and the 1960’s.  Signs of those days were neon signs as well as porcelain enamel signs and metal signs.





 I often look at vintage signage from this time period because it was all about the type because of this there are some really beautiful signs that use type in really interesting ways. Some are simple and understated and use type in a really clean and beautiful way, while others are flashy and use every trick in the book to draw the customer in.





Another thing that is really interesting to look at with these signs is their use of typographical hierarchy. Some use all the same typeface and vary size, weight, and color. While others mix typefaces, size, weight color and imagery.  These signs often have to have a certain amount of information on them and often a logo or logo type and it’s interesting to see how the designers of these signs handled that.

Here are some links to some other sites with some more signs.



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