If you were a Roman citizen living in the first century CE, you’d likely know the name Aulus Umbricius Scaurus for the taste and impeccable quality of his fermented fish sauces. Scaurus was a titan of industry, manufacturing his special sauces and exporting them throughout the Roman Empire. His clay jars have been discovered at historical sites throughout the Mediterranean, and they account for nearly one out of every three fish sauce jars recovered from his hometown of Pompeii.
It’s there, under the layers of volcanic ash, that archeologists unearthed some of the earliest and best-preserved examples of store signage. Scaurus had commissioned simple, beautiful mosaics laid in black and white fragments of stone depicting – you guessed it – jars of fish sauce. The patrons, many of whom would have been illiterate, could simply point to the jug showing the type and quality of sauce they desired and leave satisfied, ready to prepare yet another classic Roman dish drowned in Scaurus-brand garum or liquamen.
How little we’ve changed in the 2,000 years since. Shopkeepers from ancient Rome to today’s C-suites all know that clear, aesthetically appealing store signage is an indispensable part of any business. In addition to conveying key information such as offerings and prices to customers, store signage defines the physical space of a business and contributes to a broader sense of cultural values the store wishes to participate in.
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The Utility & Aesthetics of Classic Store Signage
Much has been written about the role of store signage in defining public spaces. From classic inn and tavern signs of medieval England to the bright, flashing bulbs of American theater marquees at the turn of the century, store signage shapes the public communal spaces a society inhabits. These are not just objects built to tell people things; they are emblematic of the places in which they are found. A street draped in buzzing neon conveys a very different sense of space than one marked by signs of rustic, untreated wood. In short, the way store signage looks means something. But its value to convey information cannot be overlooked.
Though aesthetics have always been a consideration, pure utility is the driving reason for store signage. A medieval lord needs to know if his ale will cost a halfpenny or two shillings before calling over the bartender. Joe Schmoe can’t ask his sweetheart out for a date if he doesn’t know when the movie starts. And so we innovated. Chalkboards, butcher paper, window writing, or modular signage were all employed to give shop owners greater control over what their stores displayed, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. But as our world grew more precise and complex, the demand for traditional signage simply became too great. Enter: the split-flap display.
The Introduction and Proliferation of Split-Flap Displays
This takes us back to the shores of the Mediterranean, but this time in Northeastern Italy, in the mid-1950s. It’s there that the Solari Company, a design and manufacturing firm founded in 1725, invented the award-winning Cifra 5 Clock, which featured split-flap technology. Inside the clock, a row of spools behind the display was rotated by small individual motors. A series of numbered flaps was attached to each spool, and by precisely rotating the spools to align the flaps in the correct sequence, the clock would whirr and tick and clack to keep time (for the first time) with an electromechanical system.
In 1956, Solari would see their technology leap off of nightstands and into train stations and airports worldwide. Those complicated hubs of logistics posed an impossible task for traditional static display signage: arrival and departure times, destinations, delay updates, track numbers, terminal names, gate information – all of it pertinent, all of it subject to change on a moment’s notice, all of it impossible to convey with traditional methods. Any single piece of that information would be outdated well before the paint it was written in could dry.
When thousands of years of store signage tradition could no longer keep pace with a modernizing world, split-flap technology stepped in. And so its iconic clicking and clacking became the backdrop to transportation hubs across the world. The ground-breaking utility of split-flap displays allowed for complex, customized information to be updated as quickly as it changed. But beyond their usefulness, the boards also carried aesthetic value. Just like a tavern sign with a cheeky name in medieval England, tile mosaics in ancient Rome, or flashing bulbs in a theater marquee – split-flap displays, too, carry an immense sense of presence.
Watch and listen as a split-flap board displays information. Seemingly random numbers, letters, and symbols chatter across neatly organized rows until a clear message solidifies from the fray. Placed in the chaotic frenzy of an airport or train station, these boards perfectly mirrored the organized chaos of their locales. Their presence both contributes to and helps resolve the hubbub. The scrolling letters and numbers convey a sense of urgency and impermanence, but the clarity of the information and the soothing, almost rain-like clacking provide peace of mind and serenity through it all. This is what good signage does: it provides utility in a way that uniquely amplifies the impression and presence of the physical space it inhabits.
Store Signage Goes Digital
In 2019, Philadelphia’s 30th Street train station took down its split-flap display to replace it with a screen, representing the end of an era, as it was the last analog display still in use at an Amtrak station. Across the country and world, there’s a flattening of store signage, all reduced to digital screens. Ironically, their ability to display any graphic with infinite customizability is precisely what makes them feel so ordinary and generic. What quality does a digital screen have that could ever feel half as significant and specific as those fragments of stone in Scaurus’ mosaics?
In our modern, digital world, laundromats, lawyers’ offices, and lunch spots might all introduce themselves to a customer in the same way. What these places lose when they choose ubiquity over personality is a sense of presence. Like so many things in the digital age, screens represent a lowest common denominator: the simplest, least unexpected solution. As the unifying aesthetic of the online era, screens fail to capitalize on what has recently become a precious resource: physicality.
People are spending more and more of their time in the digital world, so when they venture out into the real world, it presents a rare chance to make an impression in physical – not digital – space. Companies employing screens for their store signage have draped themselves in the aesthetics of the internet, and in doing so have opted not to make an impression they could have just as easily made online. As this becomes our norm, more places are becoming uniform, forgettable, and part of the same digital landscape we increasingly find ourselves growing weary of.
Reimaging Analog Technology
So what comes next for the artisans etching custom logos into wooden signs? The artist’s rendering of a menu in chalk or window paint? The tile-layers making branded mosaics? It’s not the end for them, but their work has become totally recontextualized as the world around them changes. What was once a given – customization, personality, and presence – is now a moniker of quality. It’s easier than ever for shopkeepers not to consider what kind of impression their store seeks to make on a customer. It is only the considerate ones, the ones who believe in the quality of their work, who will take the time and make an effort not default to the norm.
If anything, it presents an opportunity. Store signage used to demand utility over aesthetic. But now, engaging with the analog is a clear, creative choice made on aesthetic grounds. The intent is to create presence, to make an impression, to comment on one’s surroundings in a way that roots them to the physical space they find themselves in. It’s the sharpest edge physical space has on digital: to create a memorable experience, to remind people there is value in the world outside of screens.
Oat Foundry reimagines classic analog technology into modern, three-dimensional analog signage.
This is the power of the analog. Not to replace and overthrow modernity, not to look backwards nostalgically, but to celebrate physical presence as a rare component of modern life. The medieval traveller, the Roman citizen grocery shopping, and the movie-goer from yesteryear might all be able to get the information they need from a screen, but so much is lost if we rob them of their contexts. Today, our context is digital by default unless we make a concerted effort to elevate a space beyond that.
Though the information displayed might be as simple as a time of day, an amount of money, or a name of a product, the way a business displays that information says more than text ever could. As the world continues to blend together for convenience’s sake, analog store signage represents an intentional decision to step above the lowest common denominator and to look towards a future where real, physical space is treated with sanctity and admiration. Just as Scaurus adorned his space with beautiful mosaic art 2,000 years ago, shopkeepers today and always will choose to make their places of business beautiful, intentional, and designed with a sense of presence in mind. At least, the good ones will.