SAVING NEON:
A BEST PRACTICES GUIDE
$22 + Media Mail shipping.
Authors: Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan
2024 4th printing Giant Orange Press
Soft cover, 40 pages, full color,
8.5 x 11″ trim size
Is there a neon sign in your neighborhood edging toward oblivion? This guidebook gives you the information you need to kick into conservation mode to “save the sign” using neon best practices. Includes resource links and organizations to contact for support. There is a growing national movement to protect neon neighborhood icons threatened by neglect, refacing, or removal. Limit 2 copies per online order. Contact us for large or international orders.
PETALUMA VINTAGE SIGNS GUIDEBOOK
$10 + Media Mail shipping
Authors: Katherine J. Rinehart, Al Barna, and Randall Ann Homan
2025 Giant Orange Press
Soft cover, 28 pages, full color,
8.5 x 5.5″ trim size
Petaluma wears its history on its sleeve, and nowhere is that more evident than in its vintage signs. With guidebook in hand, a day trip to Petaluma in Sonoma County, just 45 minutes north of San Francisco. Discover the glowing neon, weathered ghost signs, and local hotspots in this city of historic architecture. Limit 2 copies per online order. Contact us for large or international orders.
NEON ICONS
$22 + Media Mail shipping
Authors: Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan
Exhibition catalog published by San Francisco Public Library and 2016 Giant Orange Press
Soft cover, 40 pages, full color,
8.5 x 11″ trim size
This is a catalog of an exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) Main Branch featuring images of commercial neon signage from the illuminated corridors of San Francisco. This book is an homage to the rich resource of historic photos in the SFPL’s San Francisco History Center archives. Limit 2 copies per online order. Contact us for large or international orders.
NEON: A LIGHT HISTORY
$22 + Media Mail shipping
Authors: Dydia DeLyser and Paul Greenstein
2021 Giant Orange Press
Soft cover, 90 pages, full color,
8.5 x 11″ trim size
Is it possible that everything we know is wrong? Well, in regards to the history of neon, this may well be the case. Dydia DeLyser and Paul Greenstein have penned a brief, but concise history of the neon sign beginning at the beginning, and covering scandals, murder, fascists, and forgotten inventors. A full-color, lavishly illustrated electrical bodice ripper, aficionados of neon will find this an indispensable “bible” to the history of their favorite collision of art and commerce.
SAN FRANCISCO NEON:
SURVIVORS AND LOST ICONS
A lush portrait of San Francisco’s historic neon landscape.
Authors/photographers: Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan
Softcover edition copies available to ship now!
$33 plus shipping. Ready to ship!
Contact us for wholesale and international orders.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Softcover book with 200+ photographs. Features include:
- San Francisco/photography essay by local award-winning travel writer Tom Downs.
- Neon preservation notes by Eric Lynxwiler, neon sign art expert and board president of the Museum of Neon Art (MONA).
- Endnotes section with local stories, oral history, and rich details on 45 iconic neon signs by photographers and essayists.
- Index by neighborhood to give readers a sense of which neighborhoods still have clusters of neon, and which neighborhoods have lost all but one or two surviving signs.
- Neon condition to give readers indication which signs are illuminated nightly, which signs do not light up and need restoration, and which signs are lost icons.
“Just when you thought you knew everything about San Francisco, along comes a new book, San Francisco Neon: Survivors and Lost Icons. With beautiful photography, paging through is like strolling down the streets of a familiar city with a new vantage point. You’ll never look at San Francisco streets in quite the same way again. If just one of these neon survivors gets saved from demolition, this book is a huge success.”
—Andrew Danish, author of Palm Springs Weekend (Chronicle Books)