Printable, minature street signs for the neighbourhoods of house spiders that live at the junction of your ceiling and walls.
During one of the lockdowns, I spent a lot of time looking at the upper-third of my living room. Slumped on my sofa, the shape of my neck resembling a specialised mathematical symbol, I noticed that all along the junction of the ceiling and walls were patient, utterly-still rows of house spiders, each surrounded by a bouquet of dead fruitflies (I was, like the rest of the UK, trying to get healthier, and the house was full of slowly-liquefying bananas).
In all the time I spent watching them, I never saw one spider attack another, or intrude into the four inches of empty space that surrounded each territory. Soon the line of each wall/ceiling began to look, for all the world, like a long street of polite neighbours, keeping up with the Joneses' grizzly pantry. Thinking about them this way, even if it didn't cure my lifelong arachnophobia, certainly made me happier to share space with them. Anthropomorphism has its uses.
Rather than making sourdough (my starter burped its way out of the evolutionary race after a week or so) or jogging, I decided my lockdown project would be to inject these little communities with some civic spirit1. So I made them some addresses. If you live in the northern hemisphere, you can print them out and do the same in your living room.
These signs are designed to be printed on photo paper, and stuck with Blu-Tack at the top corners of each wall. There are two signs per street, for each end of each line of wall. I only made enough for my own living room, but I've included the .psd template I made if you need to make more of your own. The fonts used are Taylor Gothic and Old Road.
The signs are based on probably the most recognisable designs here in the UK, those of the City of Westminster in London.
You are free to use and modify this repo for any personal, non-commerical purpose, but because of the licenses attached to the fonts commercial usage is not permitted.
Footnotes
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I stopped myself before I started making house names and numbers for each spider, and little doormats out of decapitated toothbrushes. I was worried that I'd upset the residents if I got too close: they vibrate so violently that I worry about them shaking themselves to a paste inside their exoskeletons. Besides, the street's residents had already mated, died and dried into their own tiny, haired gibbets by the time I had the idea. But as I'm writing this now, it is late September of another year; and already new tenants are moving into Pedipalp Drive, Hunters Terrace and Lurking Lane. ↩