Any success that the sign industry has achieved during the past thirty years of battling restrictive sign codes is being threatened by the publication of a new version of Street Graphics and the Law. Initial review shows that Street Graphics and the Law continues to advocate censorship of our customers' constitutionally protected rights to free speech.

What Are Street Graphics?

Graphics on bus shelters and park benches? Flags on light poles? Is this just another word for signage? Well yes, but it is much more than that. When sign industry veterans refer to Street Graphics, they are referring to the book Street Graphics and the Law, and the model sign ordinance contained in this book.

1971
Street Graphics and the Law published by the American Planning Association. This publication was highly critical of the sign industry and provided the planning community with the instruction that signs serve no other purpose than identifying a business and gave planners the right to control the content of a sign’s message…a right that we now know is unconstitutional. Sign manufacturers found themselves entrenched in battles to secure permits for their customers.

2004
In October, Street Graphics and the Law was revised and published by the American Planning Association. The message to planners has not changed and continues to advocate the censorship of customers’ constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Where Did Street Graphics and the Law Come From And Why Is The Sign Industry Concerned?

In the late 1960s, Planner William Ewald received funding to develop a sign code for Baltimore County, Maryland. The efforts of Ewald and others, called the “Baltimore Study,” became the Street Graphics methodology. Under the Street Graphics and the Law approach, signs were allowed to contain no more than seven items of information. Of course, defining what is an “item of information” is completely subjective. Additionally, the code contained color limitations. When the code was presented to Baltimore County, it was rejected and not adopted.

In 1971, with a grant from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Street Graphics and the Law was written by law professor Daniel Mandelker and planner Ewald using the methodology of the “Baltimore Study.” The acknowledgment of HUD implied federal government endorsement. The American Planning Association promoted and sold this book throughout the country.

Street Graphics and the Law and the infamous “Baltimore Study” completely changed the environment of cooperation and service that had prevailed in the sign industry. Instead of recognizing how the sign industry served its customers and community by creating unique signs presenting a community’s diverse speech, the American streetscape was presented through the distorted view of a telephoto lens. Signs were called “visual pollution” and “litter-on-a-stick.”

Street Graphics and the Law promoted censorship of our customers’ messages by recommending limits on the number of syllables, shapes and colors on a sign, based on “items of information.” Scientific studies were manipulated to justify these recommendations. Small sign sizes and height restrictions were recommended. Amortization was proposed for removal of existing signs. Put simply, Street Graphics and the Law is the “grandfather” of modern restrictive sign ordinances.

The sign industry didn’t sit still; we fought back and joined together in associations. We collectively worked to raise public awareness about the fallacies of this work.

The U.S. sign industry discovered the study of on-premise signs that Dr. Robert James Claus had been conducting in Canada. Drs. Claus were asked to aid the U.S. sign industry. Publications were produced that exposed the false declarations behind Street Graphics and the Law. In 1974, 1975 and 1976 Signs of the Times published three books by Drs. Claus on visual communications, which expanded a previous book Dr. Claus published in Canada in 1971. Visual Communications (Volumes 1, 2 and 3) contain much of the basic information now reappearing in newer traffic publications.

In 1976 with funding from HUD, Dr. Claus prepared a book titled Signage: Planning Environmental Visual Communication. This book repudiated Street Graphics and the Law and the restrictive concepts it contained.

By the late ‘70s the sign industry, with Dr. Claus’ help, was beginning to reverse the effects of Street Graphics and the Law. Our local associations were highly active. Street Graphics ordinances were overturned. We were winning court cases based on the importance and economic value of on-premise signs. The sign industry was hopeful that reasonableness was returning to our world.

Note to Readers: A number of Dr. Claus’ early publications will shortly be available to the public at www.plannersresource.org. Please bookmark this site and check back for updated information.