Signs are something we more or less take for granted. You get on the highway and you know there will be signs that help you find the right exit, the right street, even the right address. Signs warn us when the road up ahead is treacherous or if there's a traffic camera at the next intersection. I have to admit that I didn't realize how much I relied on signs until I was in Ireland and in some cities, they simply didn't exist. It can become very frustrating to circle around a National Park that you can see on a road atlas, but there are no signs on the road to indicate the entrance to the park, the road you're on, the speed limit on the road, or even if you're in the right place going in the right direction. It's even more frustrating when...

I've been following the billboard ban issue in California over the last year or so, so it was kind of interesting when I saw a news item last week about a new documentary to hit the Dallas Film Festival later this year (April 12-22). This film made its worldwide debut at New York's Documentary Festival back in November 2011. "This Space Available" is a documentary about Sao Paulo and other movements to rid cities of billboards. (More info about the film can be found here .) In This Space Available, filmmaker Gwenaëlle Gobé brings to life stories of people from around the world who are fighting to reclaim their public spaces from what they term "visual pollution"—aka billboards, building wraps, etc. In the film, she lays the blame...