Why

One end of my road had a vandalised road sign and my end of the road never had one at all. I knew that delivery people and taxi drivers etc sometimes struggled to know what road they were on, so I thought it would be good to make a new sign that matches the style of normal new-style Leeds street signs.

When

August 2010, August 2019 and May 2021.

Where

On my neighbour’s wall, and my own garden wall.

Materials / Media

The 2010 version made use of some ABS plastic I was using for making Stormtrooper armour, glued to some piece of wood. The 2019 version was a piece of Foamex board salvaged from a plastic suppliers skip.

Production

The lettering was made by printing reversed lettering on paper that had previously had self adhesive labels on. The paper labels had been replaced with overlapped strips of glossy black tape. The letters were then cut out with scissors and scalpel. By 2019, I used a similar method with layered tape, but I used a digital cutting machine to do the hard work of the cutting.

Execution

The 2010 version was stuck on at night and without permission (sorry Judy). The 2019 version was done in broad daylight and I had a long extension cable trailing over the road so I could drill holes in the mortar for rawl plugs.

Notes

I think the “Univers” typeface Leeds uses on these modern signs is quite nice. I’ve considered making some printed signs that could just be pasted onto existing signs that would maybe be a bit rude or weird. That’s maybe a bit too disruptive for my general style and ethos though.

The postcode is orange rather than red because I only had orange tape available at the time. Meh.

Duration & Fate

The 2010 version lasted about 9 months before being damaged and then I think it was entirely taken off by kids. The 2019 version was better made, better attached and still only lasted until early summer 2020. Because youths are arseholes. My neighbour Judy retrieved it from the pavement though. I eventually got round to repairing it but only after the council had installed a proper sign in exactly the same place.