Signs of the Times

An Eclectic Compendium 20th-Century Hoosier Signage

This book project will deal with Indiana's advertising heritage. It contains mostly older signage, often neon, of restaurants, motels, theaters, etc. Below are some sample images. What makes this book different from all of our others is that it will be in color--but only partially. Because signs are generally designed to catch your attention, they often use bright colors that don't always translate well into black-and-white. So, while all the images were shot in black-and-white, the signs themselves were carefully hand-colored with transparant oil paints. These paints were popular in the 1950s, before color film became widely used. Signs of the Times has been completed, but is not in print.