The region of the Si Phan Don in southern Laos can, with little exaggeration, be described as the very end of the world. Of the countless islands scattered across this stretch of the Mekong, only a…
Vienna’s Prater looks back on more than 250 years as a place of recreation on the city’s doorstep. The Wurstelprater in particular, with its array of attractions, has long been a favoured destination…
In Ho Chi Minh City, the prolific use of awnings as advertising surfaces is a defining feature of the urban landscape. Smaller shops and restaurants, in particular, make use of these large-format…
Vienna-based graphic designer Tom Koch teamed up with Better Letters to produce the second in their series of biopics about veteran sign painters. This short film celebrates the life and times of…
A chance discovery: at Kwong Fah Press—a family-run business that has operated in Chinatown for over fifty years—a Heidelberg press remains in daily use. The Frankenthal Albert automatic press was…
Pallas Athena, the Secession, the Plague Column—Vienna has never been sparing in its use of gilding on architectural landmarks. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the gilded shopfronts and…
The inn Zum Walfisch, founded as early as 1782, was a true Prater institution and, for generations, a cherished destination for Viennese patrons. Above its entrance, a nine-metre-long whale—installed…
In 2019, the Vienna Museum commissioned us to document the removal of a historic advertising wall on Favoritenstraße. Over the course of the week-long filming, a quiet tension accompanied the entire…
Television repair, photographic studios, taverns: not only the design of the lettering itself, but also the services once advertised by these signs now appear curiously antiquated. Yet it is neither…
Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, is in itself a visual challenge. Yet as the turn of the year approaches, the already dense interplay of Chinese, Thai, and English scripts acquires an additional layer:…