Commercial signage

Information about Commercial signage

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The sign for the Saracen's Head in Bath, England, like many pub signs, reflects a time when signs had to be comprehensible to the illiterate.


Commercial signage identifies a business or similar entity, assists in wayfinding and attracts customers. In societies where literacy is not widespread, such signs are necessarily primarily based on images rather than words. Since the rise of mass literacy, such signs generally include the name of the business, often in the form of a logo, but also continue often to use images in addition to and in the place of words.

See also

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Multiple logos on the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco, California

External links

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Los Angeles' famous Hollywood sign, now a symbol of the entertainment industry, originally said Hollywoodland, and advertised a real estate development.
Wayfinding encompasses all of the ways in which people and animals orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place.

Wayfinding is often used to refer to traditional navigation methods used by indigenous peoples.
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literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate
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logo (from the Greek λογότυπος = logotipos) is a graphical element, symbol, or icon that, together with its logotype (which is set in a unique typeface or arranged in a particular way) form a trademark or brand.
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A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. Typically a word will consist of a root or stem and zero or more affixes.
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Neon signs are luminous-tube signs that contain neon or other inert gases at a low pressure. Applying a high voltage (usually a few thousand volts) makes the gas glow brightly. They are produced by the craft of bending glass tubing into shapes.
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