What’s Love got to do with it?
Photo: Erik Williamson
This “Love Sign” stems from a fascination with the iconography and vernacular of traffic signs. It is also a response to the sometimes heartless world in which we live.
Religious and corporate marks aside, there is perhaps no symbol more recognisable than the octagonal red “STOP” sign. Expletives deleted, there is perhaps no word more powerful and evocative than “LOVE”.
The 600 mm diameter aluminium signs are manufactured in Australia, to international traffic control specifications (with one obvious discrepancy). Each Love Sign is individually labelled and numbered on the back, and is ready for easy hanging.
Mounted on 25 mm rails, the sign hovers off the wall. The Love Signs feature an ultra-reflective finish—so, with a distant light in a dark room, they glow like new love.
First created for Supermarket in Brisbane in 2003, the Love Sign and its intended message just seem to become more and more pertinent. The signs appeal as artworks/design pieces, and make popular gifts, especially with lovers and wedding guests.
Today, Love Signs can be found hanging in bedrooms and boardrooms from Noosa to New York. There are more than 400 of them out there, in 50-something cities/towns/places in a dozen or so countries.
We hear on the REMO grapevine that Love Signs have been acquired by Cate Blanchett (“our Cate”), Toni Collette (“our Toni”) and Kevin Roberts (world chief of Saatchi & Saatchi, and author of Lovemarks: the future beyond brands). And others have made surprise appearances at weddings in England, Sweden, the Netherlands and Italy.
Which is all, well, lovely.