Signs in motion: a dynamic agent in landscape and place

Abstract

Only recently have scholars begun to study how signs structure and enable use of the humanized landscape. This paper proposes to advance this new subject further in taking up the category of signs that move. An historical review discloses wide application in public transit, private automobiles, commercial trucks, railroad rolling stock, state license plates, bumper stickers, marine transportation, clothing and tattoos. Most of the sources for this history are drawn from advertising and sign trade publications. A gallery of photographic images illustrates the moving signs pervasiveness throughout the United States, Western Europe and the Caribbean. Why moving signs have heretofore been generally ‘unseen’ in the scholarly agenda points out the difficulty of fixing on the moving sign and the absence of a liaison with museums, which themselves little attend to signs of any type. The result is further understanding the excitement of lived-in space, the life-affirming nature of movement, and the viewer's self-construction of satisfying landscape and place.

Keywords:

• signs
• landscape
• movement
• visualization

Notes

1. For a discussion of place-product-packaging as it applies to fast food restaurants, see Jakle and Sculle (1999).

2. Also see Tymoski (1992).

3. The recently established (and thus very much still aborning) American Sign Museum at Cincinnati, Ohio is the sole American exception. American Sign Museum. 2006 (http://www.signmuseum.com).

4. Prime among the American trade journals published for the sign industry over the past century are: Signs of the Times, The Poster, and Pencil Points, the latter more a journal for sign draftsmen among other graphic artists.