Love Taupō Sign

That is a genuinely modern form, and it is worth distinguishing from the older tradition. A Big Thing built in 1975 was designed to be seen from a moving car and photographed on film that might not be developed for months. A hashtag sign built in the social-media era is designed to be photographed immediately and distributed by the visitor, which makes the audience the distribution network. The town is not advertising to the person standing there; it is advertising through them.

The setting does the heavy lifting. The letters frame visitors against Lake Taupō – the largest lake in the country, filling the caldera of a volcano whose eruption around eighteen hundred years ago was among the most violent anywhere in the last several millennia – with the mountains of the central plateau beyond.

The macron is a small but real detail. Spelling it Taupō rather than Taupo in permanent public lettering reflects the wider and relatively recent normalisation of correct te reo Māori orthography in New Zealand signage.

Nothing located supplies a date and the maker's identity.