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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

Is it a common opinion that these signs are ugly? I certainly don't consider them aesthetically pleasing, but they are so ubiquitous, functional, and necessary that it never even crossed my mind to think of them as either ugly or attractive, in the same way that I've never pondered the aesthetic merits of stop signs.

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I think "ugly" is just a clickbait opinion at the top to get people to read a (quite interesting) discussion of the history and sociology of illuminated signs.

We're still at the stage of LEDs imitating existing lighting design, rather than having their own sui generis aesthetic. You get LED bulbs that fit existing fixtures, with the heat-sensitive short-lived driver electronics packed up against the hot LEDs, and a very different light pattern to the bulb they're replacing.

I've been impressed with the availability of cheap "warm white" LEDs, and I'm on the point of trying to design my own lighting fixtures out of aluminium.

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.

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.

> 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...

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.

Many journalists and authors still swear by WordStar -- among them George R.R. Martin. 1980s word processing was in some ways more straightforward than the Word of today.

> ubiquitous, functional, and necessary

I think it's like the plumage of the male peacock. It doesn't make sense at all to put on that display, but if everyone does it you can't be the only one out, because it's expected.

Here in old-timey Europe I know only one shop that has an open sign like that, and it's a massage parlor.

Yeah, these LED "OPEN" signs indicate cheap/tacky to me, because I only ever notice them on places I would match in these categories. (I'm in Germany)

In Italy, I kind of associate signs like that with fast food - kebab shops, for instance.

And here in the USA I think of Italian sub shops. :)

Those are the first places I consciously registered seeing them myself.

Here in old-old-timey Europe (London), these signs (and others like the green cross on pharmacies) are an increasing scourge approaching epidemic proportions. Never mind street lights - shop signs are ruining the night skies.

What do you know of the sky in the UK? How was the eclipse by the way?

Just kidding, I was just too disappointed not to be able to see anything.

Apparently there was an aurora borealis visible over Europe few nights ago, but I couldn't see it because it was outshined by the city's aurora commercialis.

Aurora negotialis would be more correct, but I really love this expression!

A hard choice between something that is more correct and something that is more recognizable to a person who (like myself) doesn't know latin very well ;).

Chinese shops and kebabs have it too. I agree it's ugly and makes me think the shop is of low quality.

They are definitely not a gem of art, but it never occurred for me that LED signs are ugly. They are functional and energy efficient, that's all what's needed of a sign. Though as other commenter have mentioned, "open" signs are not very popular in some (most?) European countries.

But stop signs are designed according to international conventions (that's why they look the same in almost every country). Open signs are not. In fact, they are notoriously uncommon here (Denmark).

I think it depends on the context - they can certainly make their surroundings horrible (cf Piccadilly Circus, London) and I'd classify that as "ugly". Although I generally don't like LED signs anyway because they tend to be ungodly bright and I have enough trouble with dark-sight as it is.

To that point, someone should consider the design effectiveness of road signage, just as much as someone should maybe design an "OPEN" sign that isn't "ugly" but also get's the message across, while also having potential for becoming iconic.

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