WEEK 1:

What do you want to see when touring the nieghborhoods of San Francisco? How is studying signage in San Francisco ethnography or visual anthropology?

Through touring a city, no matter how familiar you are with it, you can always find new unknown areas that interest you. Walking down side streets and alleys or touring the city by different means of transportation can show you different things about a place that you never knew existed. I am very excited to be able to tour around San Francisco this semester, observing different neighborhoods and districts and observing the different types of signage that contributes to the distinct characteristics of these places. Signage is a major part of a persons every day lives, no matter where you go there are signs everywhere. Signs can be right in front of you, they could be on the ground where you are walking or they could be even on a bus or some other type of transportation being advertised to all that are passing by. People can gain things such as direction, information or can gain interest in things through appealing signs. Signage can tell you many things, for instance about the history of an area, what type of district you’re at and also can easily direct you to places with simple things like street signs. These are just a few things signs do for us in our every day lives, but I’m excited to be able to really observe the root of types of signage throughout the city.

I am looking forward to seeing many things while touring the neighborhoods of San Francisco. One thing I’m interested in seeing, is how signs are made to be visually appealing. I am a business major and this course really relates to this particular major. Signs are made to appeal people and to make them want to enter into a business, to attend an attraction, etc. For instance, McDonalds and other fast food restaurants have made their sign colors red and yellow because these colors are psychologically supposed to make people hungrier. I find it very interesting how signs can be made to subconsciously attract people. I would be curious to learn and witness other things businesses can do to attract people to, for example, a business or restaurant. Another thing I’m excited to see throughout the city is the mixture of historical signage and new age, modern signage. I will be interested in seeing if different districts have more historical, older signs where as some districts have been completely modernized. Going around a city as diverse as San Francisco will be very fascinating because there is so much advertising and signage everywhere you look.  

Studying signage can be seen as both ethnography and visual anthropology. Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that compares and examines the technology, origins, religion, language and social structure of the national, racial and ethnic divisions of humanity. Visual anthropology is a field dealing with ethnographic photography, it encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation, including the production and reception of mass media. It is easy to see how signage is a part of these fields. Signage is simply a visual representation to tell people where they are, what types of businesses are in a building, or can advertise for a particular event- though this is just a few examples of visual representations. Signs have different origins and can be made in different languages and made different visually, based on the history of the business or area. 

This semester will teach me a lot about, not only different areas of San Francisco, but through the signage around the city I will be able to learn the history of the city. I will also learn about signage and visual representation, something I think is very fascinating, and that will relate to my major down the road. There are many things I’m hoping to see while touring around the city, like how signs are made to appeal more people and how they are relating to each other in different districts. Signs are something that when people look at them, they don’t really understand the origin of them or even how important they are in our everyday lives, thus the reason I am excited to learn about them while touring the city.