Ghost Signs

ゴーストサイン / 1880s–1950s / rediscovery / Style / Signage and Display

Hand-painted brick-wall advertisements faded by weather. The lettering of the craftsmen called wall dogs, through peeling and fading, is being rediscovered as a stratum of urban memory.

Ghost Signs — Ghost sign in London (CC BY-SA 4.0) · © Acabashi — Ghost sign in London (CC BY-SA 4.0) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Acabashi

Ghost Signs — Wills's Gold Flake wall advertisement (CC BY-SA 4.0) · © Acabashi — Wills's Gold Flake wall advertisement (CC BY-SA 4.0) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Acabashi

Ghost Signs — Coca-Cola ghost sign (Buffalo, New York) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Andre Carrotflower — Coca-Cola ghost sign (Buffalo, New York) — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © Andre Carrotflower

At a glance

Visual cues

Paint applied straight to brick
Fading and peeling
Craftsman lettering
Layers of overpainting

Best used for

Treating the traces on an existing wall as design in a renovation
Painting a new sign on an old building with the texture of accumulated time

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Dictionary entry

Type: Redraw period shop lettering by hand, with shadowed letters and ornament rules
Composition: Do not dodge joints or openings, aligning letters to the brick coursing
Material: Brushed straight onto brick, assuming the least stable colors fade first
Caution: Applying an even wash of distress falsifies the direction of fading and the order of overpainting, and the intended age reads as fake.
Further study: the wall dogs' craft / the archaeology of overpainted layers / the preservation vs. faux-retro debate

Related entries

Neon Signage (ネオンサイン)Same Signage and Display lineage.Compare Ghost Signs and Neon Signage
Victorian Ornament (ヴィクトリアン装飾)Shared effects: Nostalgia.Compare Ghost Signs and Victorian Ornament

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