The ghostly signs of London

A wall with a faded version of the old Boots Chemist logo on it
Photo by Roy Reed

Before abandoned billboards showing sun-faded adverts from your childhood, there were painted signs and logos on walls that barely stood the test of time. In a new book called Ghost Signs: A London Story, Sam Roberts and Roy Reed look at London’s “ghost signs” and their history.

‘[The signs] are voices from the past, they are public pieces of history written for a past audience, we can only see them by the quirk of their survival,’ says Roberts. These typographic landmarks have survived against significant odds and have a precarious existence in an ever-changing urbanscape. ‘Very few are listed, and many may be lost in the future,’ Roberts adds.

(via The Spaces)

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