The Painted Ad is the culmination of an ongoing love affair with vintage wall signs, scarce as they have become. This volume features 25 photographs, both black-and-white and color, showcasing an advertising form prevalent before the time of billboards. Representing finds in large cities and small towns, The Painted Ad captures this period of American history when wall signs, in their heyday, dotted the commercial landscape. Moreover, The Painted Ad offers readers a choice: It may be kept as a book or its perforated pages gently torn out and sent through the mail as postcards. Stage has gone from St. Louis to Peoria, Portland to Philadelphia ... and he has gathered an impressive compilation of the fading relics. --American Heritage ... a delightful focus on a slice of visual Americana. --Friends Of Calligraphy Journal The richness of this book lies in the quality and variety of images and the abundance of typographic solutions found within the painted signs. It should be required reading for those interested in the history of visual communications. --Society For Commercial Archeology NewsJournal "Stage has gone from St. Louis to Peoria, Portland to Philadelphia ... and he has gathered an impressive compilation of the fading relics." -- American Heritage magazine Wm. Stage is a St. Louis-based writer and photographer. He has taught photojournalism at Saint Louis University School For Professional Studies and taught feature writing at The Defense Information School located at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. His commentaries may be heard occasionally on KWMU, the NPR affiliate in St. Louis. The Painted Ad is his eighth book. Margaret Stage helped her father assemble and edit the pictures that make up The Painted Ad. Her interests include drawing, music, and movies. She is a sophomore at Webster Groves High School in St. Louis.