Keeping my tradition of singling out particularly smart business models, I’ll shift my focus away from the previous article’s burgeoning ice cream chain Kilwin’s and, this time, return my camera’s lens to an old standby: a roadside produce stand off State Route 1 (Coastal Highway) in southern Delaware. I say “return” because I visited this
I’m hardly the most well-versed person in typography —far less than a good old friend of mine who runs a burgeoning podcast on tales of the supernatural—but I enjoyed computer fonts enough as a child that I can still recognize some of the most prevalent ones from the late 80s up to the mid 90s.
As someone who enjoys long road trips (perfectly fine if they’re solitary), I can never get enough of the small, often amusing telltale indicators of the cultural composition that distinguishes a place. The visual shibboleths, if you will. Venturing across Interstate 70, one of the oldest, longest, and most heavily traveled segments of the original
For the last decade or so, it’s been not too difficult to spot a specific type of vehicle parked on the street or driveway in residential neighborhoods. Here’s an example in a quiet lower-middle class part of Alexandria, Virginia: Yes, it’s the formerly ubiquitous (but hardly obsolete) food truck. Before its explosion in popularity about
We all have our weird hobbies, or even just predilections. For many years, I’ve been interested in art brut or outsider art—that is, any artistic expression in which the creator is largely untrained, self-taught, or taught outside of an academic setting. Such an aesthetic position may seem synonymous with folk art or naïve art—the former
If a good sign is worth more than its weight in canvas, plastic, fiberglass, cardboard, or whatever material helped birth it, a good old sign earns even more accolades, as multiplied by the number of years it has done its job. (Weight of the material multiplied by its age?) The perseverance of a good sign
A few years ago, while roaming the streets of central Allentown, I saw what had to be a relic from a previous generation: the classic red, white, and blue of the Amoco logo. The torch and oval were so ubiquitous and iconic that even Americans born after 1990 should recognize them—maybe even those who were
On a sun-drenched stretch of I-40 in New Mexico, conveniently situated between nowhere and Purgatory (but not the ski resort outside Durango—that’s in Colorado, silly), the weary motorist who can’t quite make it to Albuquerque might find this massive casino complex a welcome reprieve.It’s the Route 66 Casino Hotel, one of numerous gaming facilities in
Am I the only one who has noticed the growing presence, particularly in the last few years, of restored advertising banners on the sides of brick buildings, like we used to see in days of yore? Most people know what I’m talking about; here’s an example in a well-preserved historic district a few blocks east
The southward drive down Delaware State Route 1 (Coastal Highway) toward the beaches is long (by Delaware standards) and none too visually arresting, but peppered along the corridor are some whimsical finds that keep things interesting. I’ve pointed them out in the past. Now, just outside the small city of Milford we see another example
Keeping my tradition of singling out particularly smart business models, I’ll shift my focus away from the previous article’s burgeoning ice cream chain Kilwin’s and, this time, return my camera’s lens to an
I’m hardly the most well-versed person in typography —far less than a good old friend of mine who runs a burgeoning podcast on tales of the supernatural—but I enjoyed computer fonts enough as
As someone who enjoys long road trips (perfectly fine if they’re solitary), I can never get enough of the small, often amusing telltale indicators of the cultural composition that distinguishes a place. The
For the last decade or so, it’s been not too difficult to spot a specific type of vehicle parked on the street or driveway in residential neighborhoods. Here’s an example in a quiet
We all have our weird hobbies, or even just predilections. For many years, I’ve been interested in art brut or outsider art—that is, any artistic expression in which the creator is largely untrained,
If a good sign is worth more than its weight in canvas, plastic, fiberglass, cardboard, or whatever material helped birth it, a good old sign earns even more accolades, as multiplied by the
A few years ago, while roaming the streets of central Allentown, I saw what had to be a relic from a previous generation: the classic red, white, and blue of the Amoco logo.
On a sun-drenched stretch of I-40 in New Mexico, conveniently situated between nowhere and Purgatory (but not the ski resort outside Durango—that’s in Colorado, silly), the weary motorist who can’t quite make it
Am I the only one who has noticed the growing presence, particularly in the last few years, of restored advertising banners on the sides of brick buildings, like we used to see in
The southward drive down Delaware State Route 1 (Coastal Highway) toward the beaches is long (by Delaware standards) and none too visually arresting, but peppered along the corridor are some whimsical finds that