> What's really amusing is that a previous generation of art critics had exactly the same complaints about the "spectacularly flexible and inarguably lovely" neon signs that this guy likes.
Is that really true though? Neon can be beautiful, e.g. see Dan Flavin. LEDs can be beautiful too, e.g. Leo Villareal. It's not about the medium, it's about the execution.
Maybe it's not a big deal in the scheme of things, but cities are hostile enough as is. It's the little things that can add up to making a place pleasant to live and work in or not...
Re:The Ugliest Sign in America
by Turing_Machine on Friday March 20, 2015 @10:13AM
(#9237802)
Yes, it's really true. A lot of cities even enacted ordinances against neon signs because the aesthetic police of the day had deemed them hideous.
The practical, utilitarian present is always hideous. The romantic imagined past is always beautiful. That's why today there's more dignity in being a burlesque performer than a regular stripper. And why Gibson wrote Neuromancer on a manual typewriter and avoided touching computers until they became so ubiquitous he couldn't not touch one.
To be fair Neuromancer was published in 1984 so computers and word processing was weird and clunky and expensive.
The business owner just cares about letting people know whether or not the store is open. He's not out to give the customer a transcendent esthetic experience.
"It works" and "it doesn't cost much money" are really the only criteria here. The neon signs were free/cheap because they generally also served as brand advertising. The LED signs are just plain cheap. Both serve their necessary function.