Researching what the term of “graphic design” possibly means, I found myself being able to access so much content through newly available and ever expanding digital manners. Scrolling the endless streams of images generated by algorithms, made accessible through social media, developing an addiction of “keeping up” and a fear of “missing out”. This immense saturation of curated imagery I experienced in my daily life, in the academy, at home and outside hindered my study process and overall interest the subject of “graphic design”. Being in this mindset of “everything has already been done” pushed me to take a lengthier break from certain ways of consuming visuals, particularly through digital medias.

Are there possible aspects of the physical world which we overlook in our daily, busy lives? An interest in the visual aspects of the physical public space started to appear Could it possibly be that all these minimal, clear, instructive signages reflect certain aspects of our society today? What can be concluded about the state’s thirst for authority from numerous signs in public? An excessive attempt to control and regulate public life, traffic and even our train of thought?

Public signage ages and gets transformed by factors such as rain, strong winds, fluctuating temperatures, natural reactions, falling objects, animals, humans, and multiple types of vehicles that are utilized by humans. In this thesis, I will investigate “modern” capitalistic society and its cityscapes, showing that these are closely intertwined with what we are exposed to visually in the public space. By analyzing the beginnings and objectives of signage I turn to theories of perception and behavior. The categories of signs differ between commercial and informative types of signage, between the physical, tactile and newly conceived digital public space. In case studies I study the above mentioned as well as regulations, the bureaucratic and formal aspects of state and company owned signage - but also various artistic approaches.

Wake up, get ready, eat, work, rest and repeat. We humans naturally mold ourselves into daily routines to create consistency and slowly achieve our goals. All of us have our own values, objectives and beliefs, which we embody through our way of thinking, speaking, dressing. Our homes are a safe space in which we can adapt to fit our needs and wants. However, throughout our life we visit uncountable destinations. To get to these places we commute though the so called public space. Nowadays the public space is somewhat of a visual war-zone, an abundance of un-familiar faces, advertisements and authoritative signs of the state, communicating how, what, when or why we should behave in certain manners[Fig. 1]. Instructions of where to walk, where to stand, where to stop, where not to walk, where not to stand, where not to stop. We commute through an urban forest consisting of a mixture of language and symbols, many of which can be rather cryptic to the common pedestrian[Fig. 2, 3]. Graphic design is used aggressively, to convince, directing your attention, informing your behavior, and maintaining authority.

Firstly, we take a step back and try to understand why finding your way around your environment is an essential part of life. In his book “Wayfinding”, Michael Bond states: ”The physical world is infinitely complex, yet most of us are able to find our way around it. We can walk through unfamiliar streets while maintaining a sense of direction, take shortcuts along paths we have never used and remember for many years places we have visited only once”[1]. The public space leaves a significant imprint on the human mind. We unconsciously map out places we visit, our brain marks these small landmarks, remembering certain factors more than others, but spatial familiarity is a large part of our lives. Looking back to the times before urbanization, certain features of landmarks helped us to navigate and understand where we are, and what paths to take. To understand the current situation of the public space and if what we are visually exposed to today is excessive, we look back at the stone age also known as the Palaeolithic age[Fig. 4], Bond writes: ”You had to be able to walk for days over ground you may not have seem before ,a cross prairie, through woods and over mountains, to forage, hunt or sit around a fire with distant neighbors. And at every point in your journeying you had to know the way home, because those who didn’t make it back usually perished. Other spatial attributes would have helped, too: a mental map, for instance, to remember where to find food and medicinal plants and important features such as bear caves, streams and shelter”[2].

With no signs or navigation technology to lead the way, humans had to find other means of understanding space. Being on foot also meant that if you got lost after sun set you would be exposed to many dangers, ultimately risking your life. Remembering your direction and path and way back home was crucial for survival.

In today’s urban landscape it is hard to pay attention to geographical differences and landmarks due to the saturation of visual material. Some of this content is designed to lead us on our way. However most of it has different purposes such as persuasion, distraction and increasing profit[Fig. 5]. Does this visual overload help us to stay focused and navigate to our intended destinations, or does it rather inflict a feeling of cognitive dissonance?

“Everyone knows what is meant when we speak of a 'room' in an apartment, the 'corner' of the street, a 'marketplace', a shopping or cultural 'centre', a public 'place', and so on. These terms of everyday discourse serve to distinguish, but not to isolate, particular spaces, and in general to describe a social space. They correspond to a specific use of that space, and hence to a spatial practice that they express and constitute”[3]. In his book “The Production of Space” Henri Lefebvre remarks that we tend to quickly understand what is implied when a certain type of “space” is mentioned, due to its physical make up, what it entails. When thinking about signage, we must understand that it largely constitutes to the image we have of the public space, being a dominant factor that heavily populates the streets. Due to the globalization of the recent years, especially in cities all around the world, the public space became a bricolage of various cultural contradictions, actions, reactions, theories[4]. While commuting to a destination, we are visually attacked by representations of ideas, symbols and values, coming from a wide range of sources. Are we unconsciously filling our heads with superfluous information? Since we have so many factors of life to focus and work on, we often tend to ignore, quickly forget but cannot completely abstain from keeping these visual implications in the back of our heads. When we commute, out in the public space, towards a destination, we are going somewhere, we are in a process both physically and visually.

Whatever we see in this process has an undeniable effect on how we feel and behave later on. Power structures which maintain our society are resembled in the visual material that we encounter. Public signage acts as a stationary manner to transmit a message, persuade, tell us what to and what not to do[5]. Furthermore, us humans being the recipients, we solely need our sensory organs of sight to view and become influenced by content, thus no additional apparatus is required. Even when these public manners of communicating are thoroughly thought through, is it possible for them to remain in their original and most powerful state?

This thesis serves as an investigation of the intentional and accidental, human-initiated and natural deterioration, decay and aging of public signs. The life-span of a public object is analyzed through three main stages. Firstly the design, purposes and objectives of public signs are discussed as “conception”. Why do such authoritative signs even exist and what constitutes their visual aspect? Secondly, the “birth” of signage, touching the streets: Do these signs blend in or stand out in combination in public space[Fig. 6]? Thirdly, the “youth to retirement” chapter examines the visually altered state of the sign, the content of a sign becoming irrelevant through its aging process. Covering up or even hiding information with tape, blocks or laying it flat on the ground has an immediate effect on the functionality — the sign never returns to its primal condition.

The human species tends to be driven by a desire to create and categorize meaning. The term “Homo Significans”, coined by Romanian philosopher Henri Wald, describes humans as meaning makers. We make meaning by interpreting and creating “signs”; generally speaking, a sign has no fixed medium, it can range from words, images, objects, colors to sounds, odors and flavors. According to American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce: “We think only in signs. These mental signs are of mixed nature; the symbol-parts of them are called concepts”[6]. Peirce also declares: “Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign”[7]. What Peirce is suggesting is that anything could be a sign as long as it “signifies” a message, be it even to one individual, referring or standing for something other than itself. Talking specifically about the public space, we view many objects as signs unconsciously since we relate them to existing or familiar systems and principles. Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher, offered a binary model of the sign. He suggested that a sign is composed of a “signifier” which stands for the form of the physical sign itself, in this case. The “signified” is the message or concept it radiates[Fig. 7]. However we often look at a sign as a whole, which is a result combining the “signifier” with the “signified”[8]. In other words, this relationship between the two principles creates a “signification”, which is the message we process and understand upon visually sensing an object.

A sign is usually intended to signify a particular message, however how humans perceive and understand the language and symbols that the sign communicates through, depends largely on the context of the viewer. The theory of reception was explored by Stuart Hall in 1973, where he focuses on the encoding and decoding of content given to audiences through media such as television, magazines, radios. Hall points out that any type of media content does not have inherent meaning, and that meaning only comes from the human that observes and processes it in their mind[9][Fig. 8]. This means that public signage is merely color, typography and form on a metal plate, until it is processed by a viewer, and what they understand depends on what they already know. Therefore, there must be different kinds of reactions to said signage, one might understand and comply to the communicated content of the sign, and another might understand but choose to disobey or intervene by visually modifying it, resulting in a self expression. The perception of content spans through three categories, the first being “dominant reader” as someone who takes in the message as intended, with no extra notes attached, the preferred audience of the state, or can we call this “the good citizen”? The second option is the “negotiated reader”, who accepts the message of the content, even though it goes against their own beliefs, personal convictions. The last way of interpretation is the “oppositional reader”, someone who decodes the given message but decides to not take it into account, believing that they know better. However, what if the viewer does not understand the language used on a sign, or what if they misunderstand it completely? If the viewer is not able to “decode” the given message due to misreading or misunderstanding the language and symbols, the sign will not serve its purpose. For this reason, in the encoding process of signage, the design is kept minimal, utilizing simple and direct language and pictograms which are intended to be widely decipherable. It is a challenge for the designer to encode the messages in a manner that would be graspable for a wide audience, just from a brief glance.

A key element of signage is language. In contrast to asemic[Fig. 9] or semasiographic[Fig. 10] writing, which are not directly related to speech, the use of the alphabet we are used to form a young age on signage, strives to be universally read and understood by all civilians however also implicating colonization of western thought. In the modern Western world, time is increasingly measured against profit and achievement, a never-ending race against the clock[10]. “Western society has always been fascinated by the idea of a final goal, a destination, an objective to be reached in spite of man’s own finitude”[11]. In contrast to the East, for instance China, where a more circular understanding of time is also apparent in its language, grammar and alphabet, the linear perception of time of the West also reflects itself in the way we write, read and understand. Despite using a clock which represents time as circular [Fig. 11], days, months and years in the West are perceived linearly.[Fig. 12] “Christian theology divided time into past, present and future, and such a conception of time forced Western civilization to study nature in order to unveil the secret held by the mysterious future, and so they opened the sky and they dug up the earth to compete with nature and enrich themselves with a promise of Heaven. Asian civilization did not compete with nature for they never had a future to decode, the same divination is a practice used to adjust the present rather than the attempt to change coming events, Asians, China specifically, therefore did not challenge nature but rather accepted it”[12]. The fact that we are able to read and understand signage, making a metal link between what it is expressing and the relevance of the content in regard to our future actions, means that it applies to us and a certain respect is expected of accepting and complying to what the content expresses.

Benjamin Walter highlighted that it is important to not only understand what a linguistic entity implies, but to also question what mental entity it is a direct expression of: “All expression, insofar as it is a communication of mental meaning, is to be classed as language. And expression, by its whole innermost nature, is certainly to be understood only as language; on the other hand, to understand a linguistic entity it is is always necessary to ask of which mental entity it is a direct expression”[13]. Does the use of formal, direct and easy to understand language on public signage allow for leeway of the observers train of thought, or rather imposes a command which if not followed, might result in legal, physical and economic consequences?

When it coms to how both linguistic and visual language are used and treated for direct clarity, we dive into the abundant world of typography. Firstly, what does the word typography actually imply? According to Gerrit Noordzij, an internationally acclaimed typographer and type designer “Typography is the foundation of all thinking about form, form retention, balance, and rhythm of letters on paper”[14]. The term type design encompasses the process of crafting individual letters, which is an extremely detailed, time consuming and optic based activity, whereas typography refers to the dynamic radiating from the composition of form, color and type on a chosen medium. A sign exists under the pressure of many conditions and factors of the urban space, and the fact that it has to be understood even at a glance poses a challenge for the designer in terms of which typographic elements to use and how to use them. The information presented in a consistent manner through a sign system should be limited to the essentials. Sign systems work by taking issues such as readability, contrast and letterform into account. For many people, the word “design” signifies a styling of consumer goods and the packaging in which they are presented, but not affecting the functionality of the product. Design in relation to signage systems is much more of a practical challenge, a cerebral activity where rationality is essential, since the function of a sign highly depends on its typographical aspect[15].

Design of signage systems involves the analysis and editing of information and testing on prototypes for legibility under various conditions. No less important than the information itself, is the typeface chosen to display that content. In many cases, typefaces are specially designed or adapted. Taking into account variables such as the distance they need to be read from, the factor of movement, illumination of the sign and particular manufacturing processes that are utilized.

Going into more details, some crucial factors of a typeface that are taken into account are counters (the white enclosed spaces within characters such as b and c), treatment of characters such as “I”, “l” and the figure “1” and the clarity of numerals. However the design of the characters themselves is only half of the job, what helps these shapes to read easily is the space between and around them[Fig. 13, 14]. Compared to type used in books, this space between characters, words and lines takes on a much more important role, since it allows for legibility from longer distances. In most signage created after the Second World War, the style of typeface used is sans serif[Fig. 15]. The fact that serif typefaces “knit” character and words together does not benefit the essential readability factor of signage. When it comes to the use of symbols and pictograms, a belief in an “international language” also seems to exist[Fig. 16]. However recent research suggests that pictograms are most effective when they represent an actual thing, and the depiction of a concept or idea can become problematic due to the presence of ambiguity when direct visual equivalence is lost[16]. Even seemingly obvious pictograms that we utilize in the West, such as symbols of man and woman to indicate toilets, in other parts of the world can be very easily perceived as simply “man and woman”, without the connotation of a bathroom. This of course has to do with the fact that we grow up, reading certain symbols in ways that are fabricated by the society we live in, an understanding which is hard to unlearn. Today, this specific visual communication is further challenged by the necessity of non-binary toilets or the choice to simply make them unisex[Fig. 17].

Thinking about the different ways public signage can be perceived, we take a look at Oscar Kocken’s collection of diversion signs[17]. These signs are present throughout the Netherlands to direct traffic, cyclists and pedestrians in the case of construction work. The letter on the signs corresponds to the street name to which it is leading to. Kocken took the first image of the sign with the letter “X” to send to his girlfriend as a kiss, already interpreting the sign in his own way. After seeing more and more of these diversion signs, he later wanted to spell out her whole name, which became a drive to collect all the letters from the alphabet[Fig. 18]. Kocken remarks that this “hobby” has left him feeling slightly neurotic, sometimes missing a train because of the urge to stop and capture a specific sign. Perhaps it is this physicality and simplicity of the divergence signs that attracts Kocken’s attention - the ability to use them as modular pieces to build someones name, or to construct an interpretation of the latin alphabet through a series of objects that have a direct goal, looking at practical communication means with an eye for creativity.

A variety of studies related to behavioral analysis have proven the effectiveness of signs towards multiple goals. Firstly in the road-traffic sector, promoting seat belt use[18], regulating speed limits[19] and reducing road collisions[20]. In relation with health, signs have warned about sun safety[21], prevented injuries via lifting postures[22] and notified about possible hearing damage[23]. Public signage has also proven to be effective to minimize environmental damage through reducing littering and increasing recycling[24] and helping to level out the use of water and electricity[25]. However the many moral goals of public signage can often be sabotaged by the redirection of human attention through more “profitable” signage such as advertisement. We will dive into advertising and how it came about in the second chapter, but it is relevant to mention how it differs from signage in terms of design. In his book Caps Lock, Ruben Pater writes: “There is an urban legend that people who live in cities recognize more logos than bird species. It could very well be true, as the average person is exposed to about 5000 advertisements every day. We should stop and think how graphic design has turned our streets into an architecture of billboards”[26]. The streets that are seemingly “ours” start to function in manipulatory ways, looking for every opportunity to maximize profit of corporations. What differentiates public signage from advertising[Fig. 19]? Through the use of pictorial representation, solid colors, robust and reflective materials, public signage stands out as universally understandable. Although some of these techniques are also used in advertising, commercial signage tends to attract attention using flashy art, phrases and computer generated imagery[Fig. 20, 21]. Where a sign is conveying information, an advertisement is trying to sell an image. The most crucial factor is that advertisements fluctuate, appearing and disappearing for brief periods of time, whereas signage usually tends to have a certain permanence. Permanent signs, that do not need urgent attention such as a cross road sign, often utilize bright but not blazing colors such as blue, white and green[Fig. 22]. In cases of construction sites, where signs are used to regulate traffic or pedestrians, or the common stop sign, the occurrence of yellow and red is common, to signify urgency and obtain attention[Fig. 23].

Signs tend to be direct, avoiding any confusion or misunderstanding. However recently, the use of more complex visual stimuli in order to facilitate certain reactions from citizens, has been experimented with. An example of this is the use of signs depicting eyes, with a goal to create a feeling of “someone watching you”[Fig. 24, 25]. This trial in the Hague examines if this feeling of being watched can promote recycling and prevent people from mindlessly littering[27].

What happens when street signage is stripped of its informative content, and used in a purely aesthetic manner? Artist Teun Castelein has collaborated with sign company Trafficsupply to express his views on the attention economy behind public signage[Fig. 26, 27, 28]. These signs are materialized int he same way that official ones are, however playing with the viewers perception by displaying only various forms and colors. Citizens are left to ponder the meaning and purpose of the signs. While the original possibility of even putting up these signs in the streets remains unknown, dutch municipalities say that "They look cheerful, but you can't just hang up signs in the city. That causes confusion. That's why we are going to remove the signs”[28]. This project is a direct comment on the visual aspect of the public space, highlighting the fact that each viewer will construct their own meaning of a sign, perhaps even such an abstract public expression could mean something, but since it does not directly communicate relevant rules or regulations, the state cannot tolerate it.

“A good traffic sign, apart from being well designed, should have as long a life as possible and should retain its original appearance throughout. These characteristics can only be achieved by the employment of sound manufacturing methods and best quality materials”[29]. Modern ways of production enable long lasting public signage[Fig. 29]. The developed usage of aluminum alloys, cast sheet aluminum, tubular steel poles allows signs to be reasonable in cost, resist corrosion and be light in weight[30]. Fastened with heavy duty bolts and stuck significantly deep into the ground, the public sign is born, it stands to communicate. However, no matter how pristine the quality of said sign is, it finds its place in the harsh environment of the outdoors.

Taking a step back, we can observe that before the industrial revolution, which introduced cast iron and the use of patterns and moulds, public signage (informative and commercial) used to be produced by hand. Carving was the earliest durable method of applying lettering and was used on milestones from Roman times onwards[31]. The time consuming and extremely precise task of carving has its alternatives, which is mainly painting and crafting by hand[Fig. 30]. This way of production has its own characteristics, usually embracing imperfection, using a specific “hand-style”, not paying attention to the condition or quality of the materials, which would result in significant wear when exposed to the outside world. In his book “Mechanization Takes Command” Siegfried Giedion mentions: “The elimination of complicated handicraft marks the beginning of high mechanization. This transition takes place in America during the second half of the 19th century”[32]. The advanced production process of public signage, be it for metal informative signs, or for paper and plastic commercial signs, takes away the direct role of the human. This leads to finer quality, straighter lines, over all a more “perfected” and “clean” visual appearance. We must ask if this is purely advantageous. Let’s take an individual who crafted signs for his market stand, jotting down names of fruits and their prices, perhaps using colors to attract attention. No matter what the process turned out to look like in the end, the decisions were consciously made by the individual who will benefit from the effects of the sign. The production was local and close-tied. As a customer, one would create a connection between the appearance of the sign and the vendor, in a sense, the market stand owner had their own graphical communicational style. This absence of a clear process allowed for material and graphic exploration. The onset of mechanical production techniques, not only relating to the physical production of the sign but also the design of it, have quite a contrasting impact. Even though now the market stand owner can invest some money to acquire a long lasting, carefully designed sign, this personal connection that they had with the client through graphical means fades. The use of templates, clean typography, solid colors and general standardization of the design process, combined with a robust metal or plastic body of the sign, create a distance between the client and vendor[Fig. 31]. Do we loose certain valuable features from this dehumanization of the production process?

Is this craft of hand crafting signs still present in todays fiercely mechanized and automated society? While strolling around markets I could not ignore a certain style of sign communicating prices and names of items that are being sold. A very specific hand style, emphasized strokes, visualized using vibrant colors and illustrations. Henri the sign painter is the so called “Der Marktmaler van Amsterdam”[34][Fig. 32, 33, 34], even-though his work is present in other dutch cities such as The Hague. He takes commissions and visualizes very practical information in his specific style, turning prices which are often communicated through dull or template oriented manners into eye-catching and playful signage. This only strengthens the idea that a personal interpretation, an intuitive process can inject life into communication of practicalities. The fact that Henri crafts the commissioned signage live in the street, allowing the work giver and passing pedestrians to experience his process, instead of working in a private studio, emphasizes his confidence in his craft and only attracts more eyes along the way. This manner of signage production a rarity in todays digitized and variously technically capable world, highlighting the power of ones hand and live design choices of color and composition. What can we learn from Henri’s persistence with this expertise in the age of technology and advanced printing techniques, maintaining and drawing clients looking to liven up their stale practical content?

In order to understand the reason for the presence of different types of signage (informative and commercial) in the public space, we must look at the notion of urbanization as a whole, a growing phenomenon in our globalized world and how it is connected with economics. Looking back, there have been flows of products, capital, labor, raw material and tourists for a long time, however these usually took place within an “inter-state” system, meaning that the transactions were closely monitored and regulated by the national states[35]. The privatization, deregulation, opening up of national economies to international firms and the notion of global markets has led to an increase of mobility and liquidity of capital[Fig. 35]. The globalization of economic activity requires a new organizational structure, and to understand it better, a new type of conceptual architecture is formed[36]. Saskia Sassen highlights the importance of using language, in this case the conceptual term of “Global city” in order to understand what it entails. She states that using the alternative term “World cities” would have been too much of a long shot, since most of the global cities of today world do not embody the rich nature of the term “World cities”. Only certain aspects of different countries and cultures are picked up by others, strategically and for economic reasons, it is not the case that by connecting two countries or continents, all aspects of them are merged. This can often lead to problems of contrasting values, traditions and policies. We can clearly see this today in a sense that perhaps we do have certain foreign products available for us in super markets, however the freedom of movement, migration of individuals between certain countries is often very complicated and often denied.

This leads us to the topic of human rights, about which David Harvey wrote in 2008: “We live in an era when ideals of human rights have moved center stage both politically and ethically. A lot of political energy is put into promoting, protecting and articulating their significance in the construction of a better world. For the most part the concepts circulating are individualistic and property- based and, as such, do nothing to fundamentally challenge hegemonic liberal and neoliberal market logics and neoliberal modes of legality and state action”[37]. Harvey explains that even though so much emphasis is put on “human rights”, most arguments and actions have economic, individualistic and property based goals rooted in them. Since these factors have an undeniable impact on the construction of the public, urban space, we must ask ourselves: to what extent do we have a right to the city?

In 1969, urban sociologist Robert Park wrote: “man's most consistent and on the whole, his most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart's desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself”[38]. What is being put forward, is that the public urban landscape is a representation or reflection of the human itself, therefore it makes sense that if at this time humans are extremely profit and growth oriented, they will do their best to pursue their goals through utilizing the space where a significant amount of attention can be obtained. The dehumanizing chase for profit has slowly transformed our shared urban spaces. Looking back, the once new ways of construction and architecture of buildings once symbolized the industrial revolution, whereas today, that became the norm and the new, overwhelming information age is portrayed in the public space through endless informative and commercial signs, posters, print-work, facades, graphics on vehicles. This idea is described by Harvey: “From their very inception, cities have arisen through the geographical and social concentrations of a surplus product. Urbanization has always been, therefore, a class phenomena of some sort, since surpluses have been extracted from somewhere and from somebody (usually an oppressed peasantry) while the control over the disbursement of the surplus typically lies in a few hands. This general situation persists under capitalism, of course, but in this case there is an intimate connection with the perpetual search for surplus value (profit) that drives the capitalist dynamic. To produce surplus value, capitalists have to produce a surplus product. Since urbanization depends on the mobilization of a surplus product an inner connection emerges between the development of capitalism and urbanization”[39]. The point expressed is that capitalism, urbanization and public signage are closely tied entities, co-existing, one supporting another. The visuals that we are exposed to in the outside world are merely a reflection fo the complex economical systems that support our efficiency and progress oriented state of life, at least for the majority. Public advertisements could be viewed by one as a profit oriented tactic, with the real motivations hidden, however they are also a representation of where society is heading as a whole, since we found out that most aspects of the urban space are inter-connected. But how did this visual onslaught come about? Surely there must be rules which states and corporations comply with or swerve around.

Laws and regulations relating to public signage are ever changing, to understand why we are exposed to certain visual content in the urban landscape requires an examination of said regulations and parts of the history of capitalism. In his presentation about recent cases and trends surrounding billboard and sign regulation in the United States, Christopher L. Nichols states: “Municipalities face the constant and ever present challenge of ensuring that their attempts to regulate signage and billboards in their community properly comply with the spirit of the constitution that grants every citizen the freedom of speech and expression”[40]. Signage in public space remains an eternal problem since every individual who views the content that is pushed forward, should have the right to formulate their own opinion about it. It is a challenge for companies, corporations and governments to find semi-universal ways of communicating with the public, whilst avoiding any offense and controversy, not to say that these factors are never used as strategies to draw attention. We must ask: what constituted the need for public advertising in the first place?

The explosion of road vehicles, namely automobiles, allowed humans to explore landscapes almost endlessly. With this, came a great opportunity to utilize spaces which were not easily reachable by foot before, an open door to creep into the minds of humans through positioning of visual content throughout roads[41]. Henry Ford was one of the business men who embraced this opportunity: “During the early years of the 2Oth century, it looked as though advertising posters - the most controversial breed of signs - would gradually disappear from the landscape, and so too would the legal and policy dilemmas that accompanied them. In 1908, however, Henry Ford invented the Model T.” Ford boasted, "I will build a motor car for the great multitude" which will give all people "the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces." Ford no doubt delivered on his first promise, but whether he fulfilled his second promise of pleasurable open spaces remains less obvious. The rise of the automobile and the subsequent development of high-volume highways profoundly altered the outdoor advertising industry”[42]. Greater mobility altered the state of commerce, and these new “commercial realities” formed new functions for signage[Fig. 36]. Corporations saw the chance to grab the attention of many citizens not only with their retail location, but by expanding parts of their ideologies and corporate identities into the public space. Signage such as billboards along highways and in cities, posters on bridges, dedicated poster towers and even promotional visual matter on vehicles themselves[Fig. 37, 38].

Globalization and mobility resulted in small retailers loosing large parts of their local customer bases, which led to an increased distance between them and their customers, but an increased familiarity with larger companies, traces of their existence bing scattered around the urban space. Due to this, the amount of small retailers in the span of a customer increased drastically, at the same time shaping a competitive atmosphere. In recent years, the notion of attention has become a significant topic of discussion in relation to “the new economy” and the “digital economy”[43]. We will look at the digital public space in the following sub-chapter, however it is important to understand that even though our attention is so intensively scattered in todays Western world due to technological possibilities, we cannot stop our eyes from being drawn to flashy, refined and heavily thought through visual matter in the public space. Therefore, advertising in the public space is almost a guarantee of reach for companies striving to make a profit. This economic exploitation of the public space is heavily apparent in popular tourist locations and busy urban areas such as Times Square in New York[Fig. 39]. What can the human mind make of this absolute bombardment of visual matter, attempting to convince viewers of what thy need and where their money should be directed to? A competitive atmosphere leads to more and more visual matter, one trying to outdo the other, which in return ends up shaping the visual identity of an urban space itself. This idea has been represented in a diagram by Steve J Jackson[Fig. 40].

Over the past years, various information technologies paved the way for many digital applications which supposedly make our lives more faster and more convenient. There is a new aspect of a digital public space which is not solely used to benefit humans, but also used as ways to spread propaganda, advertising and various messages which often have the goal of maximizing profit for their parent companies. How do we differentiate between these two public spaces and do their impacts vary due to their different mediums of existence?

Looking into the newly conceived public space that is available today; the digital space, we can clearly see why it is such an attractive mode of communication for corporations and governments. “The typologies of public space have evolved over time, partially due to political change, social lifestyle, as well as technological advances”[44]. Many aspects of our lives are transformed into binary code which we view on many types of monitors. A prominent translation these days is e-commerce, a shopping experience compacted into a flat monitor, endless possibilities of consumption all from the touch of our fingers[Fig. 41], no matter where we are actually located geographically. This translation of physical public space into a digital one is risky, since it eliminates our need to move, an essential activity for any human being[45]. The visuals which we would be exposed to in the outside world, thinking about advertising or information such as news, media, suddenly have the possibility to reach us through technology, no matter where we are. “The society of the new era – of secular urban culture and the new capitalism – is putting public life at risk, as it is damaging the culture of social interaction thus causing the decline of public life in urban spaces. This process is driven by the possibility of passing through urban spaces at high speed”[46]. This can be a beneficial feature for individuals and corporations looking to make a profit, or expand their client base, but to a regular civilian the overload of digital imagery can cause confusion, cognitive dissonance[Fig. 42]. Getting back to the point, digital imagery does not have to compete with an abundance of physical imagery, absorbing our focus through the bright, back lit LED screens, thus having a much more controlled nature than physical public signage. Of course the appearance depends on the condition of the technology it is being viewed on, but the advantage is that the user themselves will be responsible for repairing or purchasing a new device, whereas the state remains accountable for repairing physical signage.

Another technological service, which has reached the hands of consumers over the last decade, is the so called “Global Positioning System” (GPS). First appearing on specific devices made specially for this service, later becoming incorporated into the common and widely universal smart phone[Fig. 43]. Today, navigating to a destination you have not been to, is as easy as asking your phone for directions, and this is a huge technological advance, since it enables us to stop solely relying only on road signs and printed maps[47]. GPS eliminates the risk of getting lost and drastically improves how fast we get from one location to another. However, we must ponder if this advance truly and completely deems signage as unnecessary. What if your smart phone or GPS device runs out of battery mid-travel? Is the system really accurate enough to never make mistakes and fully guarantee a path for a journey? Does this service always take road construction or other public events into consideration when calculating a route? Julia Turner suggests that this convenient tool still cannot overshadow physical signage: “When your TomTom tells you to get off the highway at Exit 13, you look for the sign that says Exit 13. Signs reassure us that we're going the right way. They give us real-world confirmation that our new digital advisers are giving us good counsel”[48]. The fact that physical signage has a semi-permanent feature, ensures us that we will get guidance even in lieu of a GPS device or smartphone, but at the same time re-assuring us that we are hading int he right direction even when using the GPS service. Way-finding designers have also noticed that this personal navigation tool limits our ability to learn and memorize routes[49]. Similar to the smartphone, which has eliminated the need to remember phone numbers, GPS counteracts with our ability to retain aspects of our surrounding and how we navigate it. This results in a dependence on technology, once we start using these services, it is extremely difficult to stop. Would it be beneficial for our cognitive capacity to limit our use of this modern service, in order to train our sense of the environment around us and utilize signage which is already physically surrounds us? However, we must question if physical signage is completely reliable in the long run, after its primal, fresh state is aged by natural reactions and human intervention. Why would anyone sabotage these entities of the public space which guide us and have an initial goal of assisting?

Among the various types of public sign damage, vandalism[Fig. 44] is solely caused by humans, a conscious decision to obstruct communication of the state. Vandalism of signage is a concern because it can negatively affects road safety, driving behaviors, and increase costs for transportation agencies to replace, repair, or maintain the given signage[50]. Let us take a closer look at the possible reasons for human intervention of public signage. Perception and thinking are closely linked, they are both processes carried out in our brain. When we look, what we perceive depends on how we think, and what we think is tied to our experiences, obtained knowledge. We question to learn, gain knowledge “To think is to question”[51], however as mentioned in the first chapter, signage has a straight forward goal of removing confusion, informing, directing attention, unfortunately not always for the human’s benefit. During our process of perception, the carefully crafted ways of communication we analyzed earlier can be utilized, such as language and use of formal graphic elements such as color, form and size, all to maximize the attention attracted. Therefore, signage has not so much in common with questioning, as it aggressively combats it with clarity, not suggesting but imposing.

What happens if what a sign is signifying gets questioned? This can go two ways, firstly, if the sign is informative according to some form of conduct, the content will be closely monitored by workers of the state, being replaced or covered up in various manners in case of expiry[Fig. 45, 46]. Secondly, in the case of a citizen, it is the breaking out of the imposed thinking process, seeing the sign as a canvas for expression. Could it be looked at in a way that the civilian also has the power to “censor” the state, reversing the phenomenon, even be it only for a day, or until the sign gets repaired[Fig. 47]? Could some conscious human reactions on the sign be an expression for dissatisfaction that does not necessarily have to do with the content of the sign? Perhaps a reaction to the visual bombardment we are forced to endure in our daily lives? In “The Society of the Spectacle” Guy Debord states: “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images”[52]. The book maps out some aspects of the 21st century, criticizing celebrity culture, and overall perceiving our actions in daily life as a performance, under many societal pressures. However, if we apply this thought to public space, we can understand that the increasing and possibly excessive amount of visual matter we encounter out and about is a reflection of the social relation between us humans. Everything exists for a reason, and it is possible to have a passive or ignorant stance towards what we see outside, dedicated to our daily goals or thoughts, however could it be that some individuals feel the need to express their frustration towards this visually overstimulating state of our shared urban space?

Vandalism, especially graffiti, has an ever present role in society as a tool to examine the past through the voice of the unheard[53]. However it is a highly controversial form of expression, and the controversy lies in the power of unsolicited and unedited expression. Vandalism is used as territorial expression between gangs controlling an area, as a political tool to reach the masses, an act of protest, an indication of the state of urbanization or as a way of claiming space and standing up against the totalitarian city. People scratch, write and doodle on public surfaces in effort to express their personal, political, ideological and aesthetic beliefs. More often than not, such actions are seen as a criminal offense, but if we look into the past, it becomes clear that such form of expression has been utilized to voice ideas which are parts of a larger community, a movement.

“The world we live in is governed by unexamined and unrecognized cultural forces, which can only be undone through engineering radically different situations from which to reflect”[54]. This concept was crucial to the Situationists International movement of the late 20th century. With Guy Debord as on of the key figures of the group, the Situationists were devoted to the disrupting and re-imagining systems which govern everyday life. A great value of the movement was the decentralization of creation, artists working under shared names to undermine the notion of an individual genius. The Situationists opposed the oppressive nature of capitalism by distracting and pre-occupying the norms and standards of society at the time coined by Debord’s concept of “The Spectacle”. The “Détournement” of the urban space was an artistic practice conceived by the Situationists, which meant the transformation of existing (often public) artworks and advertisements achieved by creative disfiguration[Fig. 48]. Debord and Gil Wolman argue: “On the one hand, it must negate the ideological conditions of artistic production, the fact that all artworks are ultimately commodities; but on the other hand, it must negate this negation and produce something that is politically educative. It achieves negation in two main ways: either it adds details to existing works, thus revealing a previously obscured ambiguity, or it cuts up a range of works and recombines them in new and surprising ways”[55]. This approach is a cheap but powerful way to break the walls of understanding, by utilizing and reforming what already exists, which from the perspective of the state, can easily be seen as a disruption of society. However in Debord’s “A users Guide to Détournement” he backs up this extreme approach by stating: “Even “modern” cultural objectives are ultimately reactionary since they depend on ideological formulations of a past society that has prolonged its death agony to the present. The only historically justified tactic is extremist innovation”[56]. It makes sense that an extremist approach to aspects of society is unwanted by the state, since it is a way to initiate change, and change is dangerous to the big players in power, and then ones who profit from popular, widely accepted ways of thinking which extremism could possibly challenge. Ultimately Détournement encapsulates a manner of voicing beliefs, which can lead to discovery of new aspects of ones talent, alongside clashing head-on with social and legal conventions, a powerful weapon in service of class-struggle.

We mentioned Détournement of the urban space as a protest against standards of society, but is it possible that similar approaches exist in todays world? On Sunday the 13th of February 2022, a protest march consisting of thousands of people occurred in The Hague. The protest was against the corona restrictions of the past two years, to which many individuals have a strong oppositions. The march was led throughout the city, however it was apparently not enough for the individuals involved to only make noise and attract attention with hand made signage. The public signs that the protesters encountered along their march were bombarded with stickers expressing this dissatisfaction with the states decisions to an extent that the initial content of the signs was almost completely covered up[Fig 49, 50, 51]. This use of signage as paste boards can be seen a dangerous, since the absence of certain road signals may cause accidents between vehicles and pedestrians. However, looking at this semi-extreme incident from a Situationist perspective, it demonstrates very clearly the dissatisfaction of a certain portion of the population and almost certainly attracts the attention of the state and other civilians alike.

According to HR group, an organization which registers all traffic signs in the Netherlands, 20 percent of all traffic signs are superfluous and should be removed. The group found that 600,000 of the three million traffic signs in the Netherlands are either unnecessary or unclear[Fig. 52]. A spokesperson of the group stated that: “there are also many municipalities, for example, that have designed fantasy signs at schools. Then a student can make a drawing that is processed into a serious sign that is incomprehensible to road users”[57]. By this, it is meant that each municipality in the Netherlands assumes a freedom to populate the public space with road signs which are specific to their territory. This results in “unique” signage which can often cause confusion instead of serving its purpose to communicate as clearly as possible. This suggests that different cities, municipalities of a country have a be in close contact to not stray away from the universally understandable aspect of public signage. Additionally, according to Veilig Verkeer (VVN) an organization that analyzes road safety, the dense frequency of road signs in the field of view of a driver can contradictively undermine the signages goal to promote road safety. "Many road users are given too much information and too much text," said a spokesperson for VVN. "You can often not fully absorb that information when passing”[58]. However, experts including traffic psychologists indicate that repetition of certain signs does not harm and that often can make traffic situations and regulations clearer and safer. They agree that there should not be an overload of signage, but suggest that a more dangerous distraction in traffic is the use of a mobile phone.

This distractive nature of the mobile phone leads us once again to the digital public space. “A digital media user receives thousands of information bits every moment and his cognitive ability is unable to process this huge amount of data”[59] states Renjith R. in his investigation of the effects of digital media overload. But what happens when our cognitive abilities get overwhelmed? Renjith’s research suggests that it prohibits one to find required or relevant information and causes difficulty in decision making. The endless amount of texts, images, sounds, videos that we can easily consume upon a few clicks or taps, inflicts stress on our brains, resulting in later regrettable or delayed decisions. The internet allows for almost any individual to publish or manipulate content which can later be reached by almost anyone in the world, this means that there is an accumulation of various stand points and opinions regarding a topic, event or idea. Confusion in the act of absorbing information or what might be called “facts” results in a reduced peace of mind. A hectic state of mind might lead to concentration problems, meaning the loss of precious time, hindering the process of creation, thinking and evaluation. People are the building blocks of society, so any kind of personal consequences one might endure due to this overload are of relevance. The fact that the abundant digital public space can be explored from any location, at any given time, makes it more dangerous than the physical public space which we experience almost every day, but for a limited amount of time.

A factor that contributes to the jungle of signs in the urban space is the necessity for new signage, addressing issues that are gradually noticed and deemed relevant over time. Allowing the government to have closer control of behavior in the public space, signs about prohibition are commonly found in urban spaces, however signage is also used frequently as an attempt to prevent accidents. In the Hague, a sign which warns cyclists about tram rails started appearing this year[60][Fig. 53]. On a roundabout around Zoutmanstraat, the tram rails are positioned in a way that makes it easy to get stuck in them while riding a bike, possibly resulting in quite brutal accidents. The presence of this sign might prevent accidents, however a new and unseen sign might distract cyclists from looking at the road — countering the signs initial objective. Therefore we must question if the need for such site specific signage is really necessary, and does it not just contribute to the overpopulation of visual content in the public space.

Following our findings about the information overload in urban areas, a question arises: are any governments taking action to counter the over-saturation of visual matter in the public space? Around 2006 in San Paulo, Brazil, a city where public advertisement prevailed and got out of hand amount wise, mayor Gilbert Kassab decided to submit a bill to the city council which sought to eliminate absolutely all outdoor advertising. Kassab saw advertising as “visual pollution” and stated “I know the bill is radical, but it's emblematic. It’s controversial, but necessary for the city”[61]. Many civilians of San Paulo feared that this ban would result in the city looking more grey without the flashy colors of advertisements, due to the common use of concrete. However the bill was taken consideration and eventually put into action on January 1st, 2007 under the name “Lei Cidade Limpa”(Clean City Law), resulting in the eradication of over 15,000 marketing billboards, 300,000 business signs and bus, taxi and poster advertisements[62]. In figures[Fig. 54, 55] we can clearly see the impact this law had on the city, resulting in clean building facades and empty billboard structures[Fig. 56], we can also realize how this gave space for the public signage relating to regulation, being more visible when not entangled with numerous colorful posters and business signs. However, short term results of this law also included some drawbacks such as loss of revenue for the city due to absence of ads and the necessity to actively spend money removing these ghostly, empty billboard stands.

Despite these drawbacks, in the long run San Paulo experienced beneficial outcomes of the advertisement ban. The removal of slogans and logos revealed the cities architectural aspect—a rich urban feature that was hidden before. Vinicius Galvao, a reporter working for one of Brazil’s largest newspapers notes: “You couldn’t even realize the architecture of the old buildings, because they were just covered with billboards and logos and propaganda. And there was no criteria”[63]. The unique character of San Paulo was revealed, and even if not all parts of it seemed beautiful at first, it shed a light on the initiative to improve the cities conditions and look for solutions, disconsidering synthetic masking. The absence of advertisement exposed the cities and its communities unique identity, the cityscape speaks a new or rather its true language, instead of a mass-produced one.

The excessive communication via the physical and digital space not only negatively effects humans, but also leaves a significant mark on the environment. Looking specifically at commercial signage, erecting billboards causes direct ecological damage due to thousands of trees being cut down or poisoned to improve visibility of billboards[64]. This ecological sacrifice for attention might seem insignificant in small numbers, but when performed frequently, it harms our co-existence with nature and contributes to the worldwide climate crisis. When it comes to digital signage, many believe that it is eco-friendly since it does not involve cutting down trees and transportation emissions. However, digital media advocates tend to forget that printed matter can be recycled up to seven times and that in todays age, print production can take place close to its point of use and once installed, has no environmental impact at all[65]. For any form of digital signage, there is a continuous ecological footprint for as long as the sign is in use. Even signs that use low energy LED, still produces constant emissions and the addition of features such as a touchscreen increases these emissions drastically.

Materialized signage placed in the urban space is susceptible to visual alteration not only by human, but also by environmental intervention [Fig. 57, 58, 59, 60]. Could it be that this deterioration is the voice of nature, reminding us that we are not the ones in control and that anything exposed to the environment inevitably ages? This mind-set has been embodied by the Japanese world-view “Wabi-sabi” and implemented in various art and design practices, described by Joathan Flowers: “Wabi-sabi takes the concept of impermanence and places it in a position equal to the aesthetic principle of perfection in the west. In doing this, wabi-sabi creates a concept of beauty that is not bound to a “perfect” image, rather, wabi-sabi intends that the most beautiful objects are those who most embody the Buddhist concept of impermanence, or the constant flux of nature”[66]. Under this aesthetic, an object which might be considered of less value in the West, due to its visually apparent damage, contrarily is elevated to a higher position. Wabi refers to the overall state that one finds themselves in, therefore concerning the way something is done or constructed. Sabi relates to the quality of the feeling produced by an object, deriving from “sabiteru”, a verb meaning “to become rusty”, “susabi”: “desolation” and “sabishi”: “lonely”, connotations which are reflected in the objects following the aesthetic. This way looking at the wear of nature as a beauty that surpasses the material, forces the viewer to re-evaluate their perspective on beauty itself.

Recently, we can observe that this world-view, perhaps fragmented or re-interpreted, is also present in the Western art sphere. Dutch artist Magali Reus sculpturally interprets modern interiors and public spaces, interested in the visual language of objects that surround us, she makes use of formal qualities which carry specific associations, “a kind of meandering emotional projection”[67]. Altering the non parking sign[Fig. 61], Reus also visually deals with public signage in her work, looking at signs as cultural artifacts, quiet canvases for a manic type of mark making. In her work “Settings”[Fig. 62, 63] she sands, masks, adjusts and airbrushes, using the no parking sign as a canvas, a starting point. She alters the original simplicity of the pictogram with metaphor and double meaning. “Hung at head height, the Settings are like mirrors, interchangeable faces that reflect back objects from the genre of domestic melodrama (toothpaste, car air freshener, windscreen wiper). Cased behind Perspex in small recessed cavities, these images are provocative replicas of their real-life selves”[68]. Reus explores the possible dynamics behind juxtaposing the restlessly transforming visual aspect of public signage with discolored replicas of consumerist, everyday items. By fusing and questioning the visual aspects of the public and private space, she crafts a material reflection of the current condition of society.

Throughout this thesis, we sought to understand some of the stages of life, objectives and implications of public signage. Firstly, we noticed that the notion way-finding has been around even before recorded history, even if it was present in other forms than signage, it was a crucial aspect of survival. Due to the complexities of todays urban societies, designers and crafts-men face the challenge of conceiving and producing signs for a wide audience which require instant visual transfer of information, and could withstand the harsh conditions of the urban realm. We discovered that one might experience various cognitive reactions to the content of signage, due to its ambiguous nature. Briefly going over the typographical aspects of signage, we detected some important design decisions that are common when direct and practical communication is desired. In addition to the functional and informational aspect of signage, the design and placement of it can very well be a political act. The type of information that signs carry reflect the ideologies of governments and organizations. Regarding signage design, we can conclude that an “international” visual language becomes tricky because of the many varying cultural connotations and ways of perception. We learned that even the use of pictograms, which is one of the widely understandable form of communication, also has its limits.

Early forms of public signage used lettering that was either hand drawn or carved, relying on the skill of particular makers and workshops. Even though these makers had a conformity of spirit, they showed variation in their detailing. Todays signage is mainly produced by workers who understand machines and printing techniques but not necessarily letterforms themselves, which is the job of the graphic designer. Designers working in this specific field are increasingly aware of both the functional aspect and how the design might reflect the identity of a certain organization. We have identified that even in this age of mechanization and automation, the notion of the all-in-one sign craftsman has not completely disappeared, individuals and businesses still reach out to them for their specific and visually powerful hand-style and compositional skills. Through case studies, we looked at the various interpretative possibilities in terms of unique public signage or artistic expression utilizing its visual language.

By observing todays condition of the public space, we noted that we cannot ignore the notion of the digital public space, because of its excessive presence in our daily lives. By comparing the two, we found that the digital public space might exhausting our cognitive capacities eve more than the physical space, since it is accessible from nearly anywhere at any given time. Exposing that perhaps informatory and regulatory signage dominates our field of view less than advertising, we traced back how commercial content started to appear in the public space. This revealed the economic ties of the visual matter we regularly encounter on our commutes. We found that in places around the world, significant actions are being taken to minimize this capitalist visual bombardment in order to resurrect unique values and visual aspect of a city.

Lastly, we circled the various reasons for human intervention of public signage and that what is seen as vandalism from the state’s point of view, might be pure self expression, a tiredness of the constant “performance” of life, an extremism which is necessary if a certain change is to come about. Regarding the recently conceived digital public signage, we found out that it might not be as eco-friendly as we think, and that printed matter leaves less of an ecological footprint due to the absence of constant energy consumption. Discovering that the presence of signage in the public space has a significant impact on the health of planet earth, we found ways to sense the voice of the environment talking back to us through visual degradation and decay. Perhaps it is up to us to recognize and understand the beauty of visual outcomes resulting from the co-existence of man-made and natural phenomenons.

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