Borin Van Loon: Ipswich Historic Lettering: Homepage / History Nexus

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Borin Van Loon: Ipswich Historic Lettering: Homepage

Posted by vanloon 222 days ago - Average Rating: 4.5 with 2 vote(s) (www.geocities.com)
Category: local history | Tags: england social history lettering advertising architecture ipswich history suffolk history

The thinking behind this project revolves around humanity's constant need to define and promote itself through signs. The publicly visible lettering on buildings and structures in a busy port, market and industrial town like Ipswich, Suffolk has been used for decades to communicate with the passer-by. This practice can probably be dated to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain (sometimes pinned down arbitrarily to about 1760), when the rise of capitalism resulted in the need by industrialists and businessmen to advertise, self-promote and proclaim commercial power.

The Twenty-first century sees us facing more and more invasive ways of advertising brands and services, particularly given the impecunious nature of public services and their desire to obtain sposorship from commerce in order to save money wherever possible. This current climate of 'private/public partnership' is a world away from that prevailing a hundred or so years ago when corporations, tradespeople, factories, businesses and all sorts of private individuals marked their existence with the aid of signwriting and public lettering.

The main feature of this website is to provide an authoritative commentary and amass historical detail by a collaborative process. If some of the text is misleading or just plain wrong, we want to hear about it and correct it, so that the site grows as a resource of historical public lettering and the local history of Ipswich. We are particularly keen to hear from residents who recall the streets, businesses and features depicted in the galleries; also the types of trades involved, anecdotes about the areas and people of Ipswich.

We have tended to shun signs and characters which are fixed to walls and favour those painted onto them. However, there are road and street signs (which carry their own unique history) and other exceptions where they carry the weight of the past. We have tended to avoid eccelesiastical lettering as the many churches in the town have grave stones and memorials, as well as architectural lettering which are all strictly speaking 'public' and which are a subject in themselves.
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