Award-winning photojournalist Zoran Milich captures a world of words in the simplicity of big, bold signs. As young children discover the thirty colorful photographs in City Signs, they will delight in seeing people and places that are a part of their everyday world. With that delight comes the growing recognition of the words that are all around them --- and the exhilarating discovery that they can READ!
"Don't let the title fool you. It's about more than street signs: it's about life in the big city; it's about history and the loss of history; it's about neighborhoods that were and never were, but still could be; it's about illusion and the real thing...." Studs Terkel.
Drawing upon the literature of landscape geography, tourism studies, cultural studies, visual studies and philosophy, this book offers a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the interaction between urban environments and tourists. This is a necessary prerequisite for cities as they make themselves into enticing destinations and compete for tourists' attention. It argues that tourists make sense of, and draw meaningful conclusions about, the places in which they tour based upon the interpretation of the signs or elements encountered within the built environment, elements such as graffiti and lamp posts. The writings of the American pragmatist Charles S. Peirce on interpretation provide the theoretical model for explaining the way in which mind and world, or thoughts and objects, result in tourists interacting with place. This theoretical framework elucidates three applied studies undertaken with foreign visitors to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Based upon extensive ethnographic field work, these studies focus on tourists' interpretation of the urban landscape, with particular attention paid to the encounters with national culture, the role of architecture and the importance of the prosaic in urban tourism.
Neon isn't native to Los Angeles, but it's difficult to picture the city without it. Every aspect of our lives has been spelled out in neon tubes across the United States, but Los Angeles is the king of that advertising glow. No other landscape could match its sheer quantity of signs in this city that grew up with the automobile. This latest exhibit from Photo Friends and the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection celebrates the city's long and bright history with this unique type of illumination. Here is Los Angeles, City of Neon.
"Across the city, fading advertisements and ghost signs tell the story of Milwaukee as it was in years gone by ... Join Milwaukee native and ghost sign hunter Adam Levin as he explores the national brands and local shops of the Cream City's past"--Back cover.
The rediscovery of the Knowledge of signs is a philosophy destined to mark the third millennium. Because of its universal character that is accessible and compatible with any spiritual, philosophical or religious background, this ancient Knowledge is able to answer both today’s questions and those of tomorrow. Through simple stories of everyday life, you will learn to decode the symbolic language of signs and coincidences and you will discover that we can interpret concrete situations just like a dream. In this major work on sign interpretations, you will discover a new current of thought and way of thinking that leads to profound change in our way of living. By reading and knowing the meaning of signs, we can develop a personal, one-to-one relationship with Destiny. After reading this book, your life will never be the same.
Henkin explores the influential but little-noticed role reading played in New York City's public life between 1825 and 1865. The "ubiquitous urban texts"--from newspapers to paper money, from street signs to handbills--became both indispensable urban guides and apt symbols for a new kind of public life that emerged first in New York.
Treu tackles the architectural history and signage of Main Street and the strip—from painted boards nailed over crude storefronts to sleek cinemas topped with neon glitz. Honorable Mention, Architecture and Urban Planning, 2012 PROSE Awards Signs, Streets, and Storefronts addresses more than 200 years of signs and place-marking along America’s commercial corridors. From small-town squares to Broadway, State Street, and Wilshire Boulevard, Martin Treu follows design developments into the present and explores issues of historic preservation. Treu considers “common” architecture and its place-defining business signs as well as influential high-style design examples by taste-making leaders. Combining advertising and architectural history, the book presents a full picture of the commercial landscape, including design adaptations made for motorists and the migration from Main Street to suburbia. The dynamic between individual businesses and the common good has a major effect on the appearance of our country's Main Streets. Several forces are at work: technological advances, design imagination and the media, corporate propaganda, customer needs, and municipal mandates. Present-day controls have often led to a denuding of traditional commercial corridors. Such reform, Treu argues, has suppressed originality and radically cleared away years of accumulated history based on the taste of a single generation. A must-read for city planners, town councils, architects, sign designers, concerned citizens, and anyone who cares about the appearance and vitality of America’s commercial streets, this heavily illustrated book is equally appealing to armchair historians, small-town enthusiasts, and lovers of Americana.
