#DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome) (2019) was a public realm commission for Croydon’s parks and public spaces.  The featured postcards are selected from a much larger family collection, many sent to addresses in Leicester, Andover, Surrey and Manchester, or like one featured in the #BBS (Be Back Soon) poster, forwarded to an RAF base in Karachi. The selection defines a very physical understanding of public space, and a form of commemorating and communicating that is noticeably pre-mobile phone, pre-social media and pre-text message.

The acronyms and initialisms on the posters – FYA (For Your Amusement), ICYMI (In Case You Missed It), FUTAB (Feet Up Take A Break), YOLO (You Only Live Once) – semi-plausibly describe images of Margate, Plymouth, Wittering and Welwyn, but at the same time, reflect back on the public spaces they inhabit in Wandle Park, Reeves Corner and Park Hill. They point to the digital public spaces we share and the rules and conventions we follow on social media, from sharing our whereabouts, to using filters to make images look more analogue, to shorthand, mildly conspiratorial hashtags.

The text is in an open source typeface developed with designer Saria Digregorio using notcouriersans, based on cattle brands used by farmers to individualise marks on cattle grazing on common land. It is available to download here www.ruthbeale.net/everydayresourcefulness

A Fungus Press residency, commissioned by Turf Projects, Croydon