Lithuanian Shop Signs: National or International?
Lithuanian Shop Signs: National or International?

Summary/Abstract: The significance of signs in the public space was clearly demonstrated by the project ‘Delete’, which was carried out in 2005. It was aimed at “delettering the public space” (Coles 2005). To achieve this, all textual information was removed in one street in Vienna. Two artists, Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf, for the sake of art, covered every store on a popular shopping street in yellow fluorescent foil. They “deleted” all public signs and signals, except for road signs (for some impressive simulations of such a project in New York City and Ginza, see http://typographi.com 001013.php). One of the main aims for these was to provoke a discourse about the environment in the public space and to create awareness about the excessive amount of advertising in streets (Coles 2005). The visual impact of the concealed signs is astonishing and very convincingly shows how much public discourse in urban settings is pervaded by advertisements and shop signs.

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