"[F]or the next month our billboard will be used to list some of the big and small needs we have at the waffle shop. If you bring in one of the things we need, we will create a special display with your name next to the thing you bring in, and add a new item to the billboard list as we always seems to be in the need of something."--The Waffle Shop]]>

“[F]or the next month our billboard will be used to list some of the big and small needs we have at the waffle shop. If you bring in one of the things we need, we will create a special display with your name next to the thing you bring in, and add a new item to the billboard list as we always seems to be in the need of something.”

“The Waffle Shop is a neighborhood restaurant that produces and broadcasts a live-streaming talk show with its customers, operates a changeable storytelling billboard on its roof, and runs a take-out window that sells food from countries engaged in conflict with the U.S. The shop is a public lab that brings together people from all walks of life to engage in dialogue, experimentation and the co-production of culture.”–The Waffle Shop

Jon Rubin, who initiated The Waffle Shop as part of his Storefront Project course at CMU,  is also the creator of one of my favorite sign projects, The Sky’s the Limit.

]]> http://northern.lights.mn/2010/08/sign-of-desires/feed/ 0 http://northern.lights.mn/2009/11/signs-of-the-times/ http://northern.lights.mn/2009/11/signs-of-the-times/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:39:16 +0000 mediachef http://northern.lights.mn/?p=2328 [/caption] Anthony Discenza is selling limited edition prints based on his Street Signs Project to support his habit.]]>

Anthony Discenza, Street Signs Project. via Open Space

I love signs. My growing personal collection is here. There is a real joy in finding a sign like the tagged “Respect Signs and Signals” (Boston),  but many artists have mastered such interventions as a kind of physical meme. So I particularly enjoyed Joseph del Pesco’s interview on the excellent SFMOMA Open Space blog with Anthony Discenza about his Street Signs Project, “Coming Up: Greater Horrors.”

Other favorites include, of course, the amazing Rigo 23

Rigo 23, Innercity Home, San Francisco

Germaine Koh’s Journal on mobile signs.

Germaine Koh, Journal

Steve Lambert’s equally funny mobile arrow sign.

Steve Lambert

Finally, straight from the horse’s mouth

Robert Fleege, What makes outdoor so powerful

Which is proved by the ban on public billboards in Sao Paulo.

Sao Paulo, no billboards

btw, Discenza is selling limited edition prints of his signs for a new project. Help support his habit.

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“Just after the opening of my solo show at Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles we loaded up a rented pick-up truck with the arrow sign I included in the show. When I came across various locations in the city, we untied the sign, carried it over and snapped some shots – each time improvising a message for the face.”

via Steve Lambert

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