What's in a sign?

Street signs are fascinating.

This is not a sentence that many people say, but honestly if you actually analysed street signs and gave them more thought than just their practical use, you would understand what I am talking about.

From a design point-of-view they are interesting because they are primarily for practical use, they exist to work as a marker or guide to help people navigate cities.

When designing something that has a primary function other than being visually pleasing it should always be on the mind of the designer. It is interesting to see the old street signs poking out from behind the newer versions or sitting side by side, you can see how different the "trends" of the times were. And if the building is listed or a heritage site the street sign will have to adhere to strict rules and regulations.

The above example is interesting, because the old original sign is still present and still legible. So it isn't redundant yet the city has placed a new sign right underneath it, which begs the question: why? If the primary function of the sign is still in tact, and it fits with the aesthetic of the building then why add the new sign? I can understand why people don't appreciate street signs for more than practical tools but this baffles me.  

In a way street signs represent identity.  They provide an identity to a street and even over the years when streets change and signs change they still fulfil the same purpose.  It is interesting walking through Manchester's city centre and seeing all the old faded signs or disused covered signs, it is easy to forget how different the streets had once looked.

Locations hold meaning to them, something of interest will have happened on everyone of these streets.  Regardless of whether they were important to the history of the city or of one individual citizen it still holds a huge amount of heritage. And identity.  

Cobbles. The endless Cobbles.

The concept of "Hidden Heritage" is pretty much all in the name, heritage that isn't normally noticed or seen. Occasionally it actually requires a fair amount of work to even get to it! One thing I have come across a lot during my photographic adventures has been cobble stones.  These little things we walk over every day and not even notice, actually are a really good example of hidden heritage. We may still have cobbled streets dotted randomly through cities, some taken care of and some not, but decades ago every single street was covered in cobbles. As urban developments grew and cities changes we slowly started covering up these old streets with tarmac and asphalt.  Especially on roads for cars, whereas it is still popular to use cobbles in some pedestrian areas (more so in Europe than the UK)

I bet most people don't notice that on old streets where the tarmac has broken and created 'pot-holes' cobbles are poking out and breathing life for the first time in years.  Hidden heritage!

The Journey Begins...

Heritage is an odd word. It means different things to different people.

For one person it could mean a National Trust estate, filled with beautiful landscapes and architecture that has been preserved and cherished for everyone to enjoy.  To someone else it may represent a Museum filled to the seams with old relics from distant countries, giving us insight into a long forgotten world. Or perhaps it could be something so personal as an old photograph passed down from generation to generation.

What words can we associate with 'heritage'? Preservation, history, culture, antique, identity, Legacy? Personally I see heritage to represent the last two, Identity & Legacy.  Heritage only exists because of who was there before us to leave it behind in the first place, and this legacy helps us understand our own identity and to also identify with the people from the past.  You can't know who you are without knowing where you came from.  I think people often forget or don't appreciate the rich heritage that is all around us, especially in a large city such as Manchester, and they don't realise how much we can learn from the mundane.  Museums may teach you a lot but they don't allow you to engage with the relics they put on display, it doesn't allow you to empathise with the real people of history and immerse yourself in the past.  How can we break this barrier?

As a design student I am taught to look for issues and solve them.  Not to just accept what I'm given but to try and improve it, to challenge it.  As my time as a student draws to a close I find myself trying to bring together all my interests and design experience together into one final project.  I have always had a passionate interest in history and before joining Design Futures at the University of Salford I had never even considered how design and heritage could co-exist.  For a while now I have been trying to figure out how to bring more attention to the fact that there is all this 'hidden heritage' around us and the fact that they can make for stunning photographs. Being an avid photography I'm always finding myself carrying my smaller camera with me everywhere, and when I'm walking around this city I'm constantly finding new heritage based photography sites.  And this is essentially what this blog is about. To run alongside my final project 1 Mile Heritage, and to showcase the insane amount of images I am getting from my primary research and while I generate content for the final piece as well as guide to the more interesting hidden heritage areas of Manchester.

So, ON Y VA!