May 27, 2009 | Signs I Like
Are you troubled by lack of self-esteem? Do signs like this make it worse? This terse command from the now-defunct Coney Island roller coaster kind of rubs in the fact of too-shortness. That horizontal line could indicate a height to aspire to…or it could represent you flattened by a Humvee on a remote highway. And notice how "you" is the smallest word and placed on a dubious curve that nearly dumps you off this bumper car of a sentence before it is spoken.
Here is another sign with a slightly more ambiguous command. Shot in lyrical light, it begins my list of "do nots" or offers me "Do-nuts." Time itself is the lettering artist.
From Ernest Hilsenberg, sculptor and ceramic artist.
May 5, 2009 | Signs I Like
When I encountered this street sign I was lost on a winding road in Mexico. I decided the sign meant metamorphose, which lead me to thinking of butterflies, and one appeared shortly in the hibiscus on the stair. For years I have thought fondly of the butterfly sign that made me stop and take a deep breath and orient myself. Only now do I come to find this word means braggart or boaster. Did some rude fellow knock the sign from its nail while waving his hands? Did someone intentionally break this tile as a form of expressive lettering, creating a deliberate tension between the word's meaning and its shattered appearance? Or is it just one more Pottery Barn contrivance masquerading as authenticity? As someone who has tried and failed to master the long floppy lettering brush I admire the technique here, and I love those blue flowers.
May 4, 2009 | Signs I Like
One of the great authentically ethnic signs of Seattle's Fremont neighborhood.
This sign is purported to have started life as Helvetica, and only late in life under the influence of sun and rain and the steam of thousands of plates of Hom Bow did it discover its Orientalist roots. Like many of the tall tales that originate in a neighborhood presided over by a statue of Lenin and a Troll this rumor cannot be substantiated and is typographically dubious.
Image sent to me by Wynia, of Rhuby Architectural Glass, a place of astonishing wonders in glass design and …. beetles transformed into translucent art.
May 3, 2009 | Signs I Like
Some wonderful legibility issues here–or is it a case of "weather re-branding"?
This really DID start out as Helvetica or a close cousin. Just a reminder that vinyl is not archival.
Sent to me by Dan Shafer, a designer, educator and book artist living in Seattle. Long obsessed with deteriorating found type, he often comes home from vacation with more pictures of letters than people. His use of letterforms in posters and advertising is brilliant, check it out!
May 3, 2009 | Signs I Like
The Union Street Post Office Barbershop, Seattle, somewhere in the last century ©Iskra 1978
This picture was taken approximately thirty years ago, with an old camera and lots of specks on the lens for that unretouched vintage look. This sign has an artless beauty that could make a professional sign painter cringe. But it does a poet's heart good. Are there two barbers in this shop? Or is the shop open to barbers…..and if so can you imagine the scene, all the barbers snipping away at each other and lathering each others' chins to shave the old fashioned way with razors sharpened on a strop.
Designer, calligrapher, lettering artist. 