As seen in The New Yorker, Vogue, artnet, Gothamist, Hyperallergic
“Bummed by today’s aesthetic monoculture, David Barnett is personally cobbling together the permanent collection of the New York Sign Museum.”
– The New Yorker
“Believe it or not—based on the vintage look of its storefront—Noble Signs was only founded in 2013, dedicated to preserving historic signage in New York, but also to creating new hand-painted signage that will help maintain the city’s unique character for generations to come.”
– artnet
“The museum’s and studio’s parallel missions of preservation and creation feed into each other, he said. Every old sign they rescue teaches them something about how to make their own.”
– Gothamist
“But New York used to be an exciting aesthetic hodgepodge: blinking marquees and boldly painted letters, and no mystical branding concepts, just facts—LIQUOR, PORK, SHOES. David Barnett, the founder of the New York Sign Museum, said the other day that such signs represented ‘a conversation between two people, a shop owner and a sign-maker.’”
– The New Yorker
“Barnett’s museum is a nonprofit that rescues historic advertising throughout the boroughs. A patient, soft-spoken man in his thirties, Barnett seems to know every storefront in New York. Mention a sign in his presence—say, the sublime, hand-painted one outside Grandmaster John Dinkins School of Martial Arts, a Black-owned dojo in Prospect Lefferts Gardens—and he’ll smile and say, ‘I love that one.’”