Finding urban graphic heritage

Urban graphic heritage is typically comprised of things such as old signs, old hoardings, and architectural lettering. This talk presented insights from a two-year project ‘Repositioning Graphic Heritage’ looking specifically at urban graphic heritage in its setting. It explored the relationship between graphic heritage and heritage interpretation, between presentation and representation, through case studies of a multitude of ‘signs’ in their urban settings. The talk ranged across theories proposing that all acts of heritage conservation are communicative acts; and urban theorists encouraging us to think about all urban phenomenon as a message; to urban design specialists who view communication as the fundamental function of cities and urban spaces. En route, we were given a view of the richness that graphic heritage adds to our urban environments.

Robert Harland is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design and Creative Arts at Loughborough University, where he is also Urbanism lead for the University’s Built Environment Beacon. For the past two decades his research has critically analysed the relationship between graphic form and urban context by exploring the way design facilitates the function of graphic objects as urban objects. Robert’s urban location-based research benefits from close collaboration with local actors, bringing to bear insider and outsider knowledge about distinct urban units of analysis. He is Principal Investigator on the AHRC–Newton Fund project ‘Repositioning Graphic Heritage’ in collaboration with Tongji University, Shanghai (for details see: http://www.urban-graphic-object.org). Other recent projects include a three-year study into representations of Fascism in new town development in the Latina Province, Italy. Before entering academia, he spent 15 years working as a graphic designer in London, mostly through his practice Harland Design (1991–2001), and in 1999 he was a founding director of the environmental graphic design firm Placemarque, with Sue Manley and Mick Timpson. He holds a PhD in Architecture (Social Sciences) from the University of Nottingham and an undergraduate degree in Information Graphics from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham.