NOW MORE THAN EVER
Five billboards across Illinois
2026
Five Billboards, Nothing to Sell
A billboard gets about one second of your attention. This fall, five of them across Illinois are giving that second back, an estimated two million times.
NOW MORE THAN EVER is a series of five typographic artworks on view on Lamar Advertising billboards in Joliet, Champaign, Springfield, Macomb, and East Dubuque from September 28 through October 25, 2026. Each board carries a single phrase in towering black letters on a field of bright color, with no logo, no phone number, and nothing for sale. Together, they reach more than 500,000 people a week.
I've spent my career putting words on walls. A billboard is the same idea moving at seventy miles an hour. You get one second with someone you'll never meet, and I wanted that second to be kind.
The Five Boards
HERE'S TO ADVENTURE, Champaign, along I-74, half a mile east of Neil Street. Every August, a kid from a small town walks into a lecture hall holding more people than her whole hometown. Down the hall, someone is the first in their family to go to college. Someone is calling home every night, and someone has forgotten to. This board is a toast to all of them, and to the bravest thing most of us ever do: pack the car and go.
THE BEST IS AHEAD, Springfield, on Stevenson Drive, just east of Sixth Street. On a rainy February morning in 1861, Abraham Lincoln stood on the back of a train in Springfield and said goodbye to the neighbors he had lived among for a quarter century. He was leaving for Washington and a country coming apart, with no way of knowing what waited for him. He told them anyway that he hoped all would yet be well. This board stands in the city he left, holding the same hope.
SHARE YOUR LIGHT, Joliet, along I-80, one mile east of Houbolt Road. Anyone who has sat around a summer campfire knows the moment when one flame lights the next and the dark gets a little smaller. Light is the one thing you can give away and still keep. Joliet sits where Route 66 meets I-80, where generations of diners and motels have kept a light on for strangers passing through at night. The board asks the rest of us to do the same.
DREAM TOO BIG, East Dubuque, along U.S. Highway 20, just east of town. Up in northern Minnesota, the Mississippi begins as a stream you can cross in a few steps. By the time it reaches East Dubuque, it's wide enough to divide two states and strong enough to carry the heartland to the Gulf. Big things start small. This board stands in a small town on a big river, in letters too big to fit their own frame.
BE HERE NOW, Macomb, U.S. Highway 67, one mile north of town. I grew up in Macomb. Coming home from college, I first heard a Mason Jennings song called "Be Here Now," and by the time I reached town, everything else went quiet. It still does. The board greets everyone on 67 in the gold of Western Illinois University and the black of Macomb High School, and joins WHAT YOU FEED WILL GROW, a permanent mural at the Western Illinois Museum.
Why Now
The series takes its name from the reason behind it. Everybody I know is carrying something heavy right now. These five boards are my way of riding along with them for a mile.
Anyone who spots a board is invited to photograph it and share it by tagging @TannerWoodford or using #NowMoreThanEver.
The boards come down October 25, 2026. The words are meant to stay a little longer.
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Tanner Woodford acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
