EN
Contemporary urban spaces are full of visual planes on which all kinds of signs are combined in a comprehensive manner, collectively creating new meanings. If these messages are connected with a given place or situation, they perform specific functions resulting from this fact, for example they structure urban space, they facilitate orientation, they warn, forbid, advertise, and embellish. The aim of the present article is the analysis of selected urban texts occurring in German and Polish cities paying special attention to their structural layer as well as its compliance with principles of semiotic economy.