Signage has the potential to serve a critical role in human settlements for facilitating free speech, creating a sense of place, engaging public participation in decision-making, and promoting wayfinding and economic development. Virtually every US city has sign regulations of some type, yet many are seemingly the result of simplistic replications of the codes of other nearby jurisdictions based on little more than inclinations and convention, and uninformed by a growing body of signage science. This issue brings together timely signage research on key topics of interest to a wide range of stakeholders concerned about the relationships of signage with free speech, sense of place, public participation and economic development.