Street signs tell us not only where we are but also where we’ve been, with their typography and styles stretching back centuries.
The graphic designer Alistair Hall is using Instagram to draw attention to them. For the past two years he has been sharing shots of London’s “most significant, most beautiful, most curious” street nameplates with details of their histories, as unearthed through research and interviews.
Some of the signs in London date back to the 17th century. “They hide in plain sight, these little labels,” says Hall, who founded the design studio We Made This in 2004. “We use their information daily, but too often fail to really notice them.”
He has photographed about 2,000 nameplates since 2016 – “from the iconic nameplates of the City of Westminster to the stunning tiled signs of Hampstead, from the revival nameplates of Lambeth to the ghost signs of the no-longer existent NE postal district; from enamel plates to incised lettering, from the simplest cast iron signs to the most ornamental architectural tablets.”
Hall, who teaches at Central Saint Martins and the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, hopes to turn his photographs and research into a book next year.
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Guardian Cities brings together the best in urban photography on Instagram at @guardiancities. Share your shots with us on Instagram with the hashtag #guardiancities
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