SIGNS Metal and plastic - The enameled sign was, in Europe and America, an authentic infatuation, not without esthetic problems. As the signs gradually crowded the walls, anyone designing a new one was obliged to render it more striking and aggressive than the existing ones. Seen by itself, a sign may well have been splendid; a wall jammed with throngs of them in random disposition could become unpleasant both in itself and in relation to its surroundings. Strong opinion arose against the proliferation of signs, but their eventual extinction was determined above all, in the years following the Second World War, by their own specificity. The signs were expensive to make, and the expense could be justified only so long as the messages they carried remained relevant. But for the by now mature field of advertising, based as it is on the continuous evolution of the message, an indestructible message was the worst that could be imagined. The enameled signs became an old way of valorizing the product and, slowly but surely, they disappeared from the walls of stores. That same specificity that had brought them down from the walls, however, allowed them to survive and evolve in the closed ambient of the service station. As for costs, it was necessary to reduce them: first, baked enamel was replaced by a synthetic version, then the metal support was abandoned in favor of plastic. 4/4