Allen Jones' 'On the Road: Parking Markings' takes the reader on a graphic visual journey by road.

Since roads were first bisected by a white line, a pictorial language has evolved that, in classic parlance, is the first or Primitive phase in ever-developing visual vocabulary, says Jones. Parking markings were introduced during my final years as a student. Produced with stencils, these marks are enlivened by human error and chance.

Because of increasing traffic during the 1960s a change was needed. Yellow represented a new and Classical phase, telling us what we should NOT do, the artist continues. Familiarity breeds contempt and by the 1990s the problem required desperate measures. Red, the colour of danger, anger and hell marked a third, Baroque phase in the developing language of road marking.

During the 1950s we were asked politely in white. During the 1960s we were told in yellow. During the 1990s we were shouted at in red. Now the air is blue.

'On the Road: Parking Markings' is one of a collection of four artist's books by Allen Jones that Black Dog Press released in September 2022.