Buy London Street Signs
London street signs are approximately 300mm height, with width determined by length of street name (usually approx 600 mm). The signs often feature the street name in black, the postcode area in red and the London borough name in red.
buy london street signs
With discount savings of up to 35% automatically applied at the checkout, trade prices, free delivery options and hassle-free returns, it's no wonder The Sign Shed is one of the UK's fastest-growing health and safety signs suppliers.
The result is a fascinating compendium of these nameplates called London Street Signs, showing off the panoply of designs through the decades and centuries, and telling some of the stories behind them.
A collection of black aluminium finger signs which have directed tourists to world famous landmarks in the capital also went under the hammer at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex, and fetched 4,200.
Imagine London without its street signs? They are the sort of thing we take completely for granted but which, at some point in the past, required somebody to sit down in an office and settle upon a uniform style, design and material to cover all London streets. Despite such attempts at consistentcy, there are still numerous varieties of London street sign out there and Alistair Hall seems to have photographed all of them.
The traffic signs manual gives guidance on the use of traffic signs and road markings prescribed by the Traffic Signs Regulations and covers England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Revised editions of the manual will be published here as they are released.
Chapter 2 is currently a work in progress. It will contain advice on the design and use of directional signs, and also other informatory signs such as home zone signs. Due to the amount of work required to complete chapter 2, it is intended that interim advice on individual topics will be made available as and when completed.
The current advice on the design and use of directional informatory signs is published in Local Transport Note (LTN) 1/94. Also available is the latest list of primary destinations in England (PDF, 64.4KB), which supersedes the information in LTN 1/94.
Guidelines on the correct use of regulatory signs prescribed by the traffic signs regulations. These include prohibited turns, waiting and loading restrictions, bus and cycle lanes etc. There is also a comprehensive section dealing with the signing of speed limits.
Warning signs are used to alert drivers to potential danger ahead. They indicate a need for special caution by road users and may require a reduction in speed or some other manoeuvre. This reprinted edition includes 4 minor amendments and addition of Appendix A, note 7.
Road markings serve a very important function in conveying to road users information and requirements which might not be possible using upright signs. They have the advantage that they can often be seen when a verge-mounted sign is obscured, and, unlike such signs, they can provide a continuing message.
... streets whose names are being effaced: Little Green Street - a metal sign in Tufnell Park is being levered off its fittings by a vine; an older painted version above is barely visible (map)
... and streets whose names are appropriate: Ruined building on Elder Street - in Shoreditch (map) ["Names, for instance, are important in crystallizing identity." Lynch, The Image of the City, 108]he has not succeeded in discovering which is the city that those of the plateau call Irene. For that matter, it is of slight importance: if you saw it, standing in its midst, it would be a different city; Irene is a name for a city in the distance, and if you approach, it changes. [...] perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene. [Invisible Cities: Irene (p124-5)]
Related:Jack Schulze's St John St and Public Lettering: London street signs
Dan Hill's Remembering signs and lettering and Consistency and the UI of street signs (differently designed street signs on one London junction)
Christopher Long's London's nameless streets (on problems with street signage, 1996)
London Transport Users' Committee's Where Am I? Street name signs in London (PDF, 2003) - this interesting report points onward to New York's signage regulations, a website on street signage globally (it's like a Franco-South-American version of Jack's Public Lettering), and the Sign Design Society (website looks a bit fallow).
UK Dept of Transport's Circular 3/93 - guidelines for councils on street name plates and numbering (PDF)
update: more street, road and other public signs in Phil Baines's and Catherine Dixon's excellent Signs: Lettering in the Environment book. You'll want this on your shelf.
What a coincidence - but an hour before reading this I was walking through London Fields and noticed a similar "recording own history" set of signs for the first time: "MARTELLO ST / FORMERLY / xxxx ST" (I forget what name it formerly was unfortunately).
Cracking post, Rod. Ta for linking to the above on mine - on a related note, punters might also want to check a few JPGs of street signs I took around a single junction in central London, which feature differing information design:
Hi,I'm a journalist for BBC London and have found your site interesting. I came across it researching an idea to uncover some of the stories behind London's street signs. I'm aware that many signs, for example, are named after local people or events. I'd be interested in you thoughts. Have you done something similar?
I came across your site the other day and found it really interesting but what I didn't expect was to see one of the signs you pointed out (Willqughby Road in Hamsptead) whilst travelling on a bus yesterday. Very random that I saw the sign on your site and then the same night I go out on a bus, on a route I've never been on before, and just by chance it happens to go past the end of Willqughby Road, NW3!
My daughter is getting married in June 2005 and wants various London street signs, which are of sentimental importance as table signs at the reception. Can anyone help me find an art source for these, or a template I could use to create these 'table' signs in the authentic and correct format.
Hi there, I am a 4th year student at the University of Reading studying 'Typography: Design for Communication'. I'm currently researching for my dissertation title "The social, historical and practical uses and influences of English street-name sign design. " This website has pointed me in some great directions already and i'm very grateful! If anyone has any extra information they would be able to give me then it would be much appreciated.
I came across your site trying to find out the dates when street names stopped being hand-painted and became metal/enamel signs. I have quite a collection of photos showing various ones including some for streets that don't exist at all any more, ones where the street has been re-named and others in the Lower Clapton area showing the now defunct NE postal area. i think you will find them interesting.I will post a selection on my blog by the end of the week... please have a look: www.janepbr.blogspot.com
Hello Jonathan,if you attach a ref/link to an an image of one of the signs I will attempt to identify the typeface. There is a book available called Kensington and Chelsea Street Names: A Guide to Their Meanings (Paperback) by B.R. Curle that might be helpful; I found it on Amazon.
A street name sign is a type of traffic sign used to identify named roads, generally those that do not qualify as expressways or highways. Street name signs are most often found posted at intersections; sometimes, especially in the United States, in perpendicularly oriented pairs identifying each of the crossing streets.
Modern street name signs may be mounted in various ways, such as attached to walls or on utility poles or smaller purpose-made sign poles posted on a streetcorner, or hung over intersections from overhead supports like wires or pylons. When attached to poles, they may be stacked onto each other in alternating directions or mounted perpendicular to each other, with each sign facing the street it represents. Until around 1900 in the USA, however, street name signs were often mounted on the corners of buildings, or even chiseled into the masonry, and many of those signs still exist in older neighborhoods. They are commonly used in France and the United Kingdom. The design and style of the sign is usually common to the district in which it appears.
Some street name signs also indicate the range of house numbers found nearby, and/or the name or number of the local administrative or postal district. Some street name signs also indicate an alternative name for the street, such as "Fashion Avenue" for Seventh Avenue in New York City, or "Avenue of the Arts" for Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. Multilingual signs are common and may be required by law in some areas, such as French-speaking regions of Canada. Multilingual signs are sometimes primarily used to promote local minority languages. See bilingual sign for more information.
Occasionally some signs are a target for vandalism, for example in areas of language controversy; and signs on unusually or famously named streets (perhaps those containing a humorous or obscene word) are especially liable to street sign theft.
In recent years, many US and Canadian cities have adopted the mast arm for traffic signal equipment; major intersections are marked with large signs mounted on the mast arms. This was started in the 1960s by the California Department of Transportation. Los Angeles and San Francisco started in the 1970s and recently New York City has introduced the bigger signs at its intersections. In 2013, New York City began to change street signs that have been previously used Highway Gothic font for a new one, Clearview, that include both upper and lower case letters, which is considered more readable.[1] 041b061a72