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Signpainter Documentary
When Better Letters met ... Josef Samuel, Vienna’s Last Signpainter
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 Vienna’s last sign painter, Josef Samuel.
A (virtuell) walk to Vienna’s gilded Signs
Vienna, Gilded
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 commercial portals that came into vogue around the turn of the twentieth century, and which played a formative role in establishing Vienna’s reputation as a centre of sign painting.
Gmunden Ceramics
Est. 1506
Gmunden, a small town situated in Austria on the shores of Lake Traunsee, is recognised as an important centre of ceramic production. This tradition is visibly embedded within the townscape: ceramic reliefs and typographic elements appear throughout the streets, forming subtle yet characteristic details that attest to a long-standing artisanal practice.
The Verein Stadtschrift in Vienna
The Typographic DNA of the City
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 nostalgia nor a longing for a “better past” that motivates the association Stadtschrift, which collects, preserves, and reintroduces these Viennese signages into the public realm.
A vistit to (the original) Hallstatt
Hand-painted skulls in Hallstatt’s charnel house
Hallstatt was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. In recent years, the village has come to exemplify the phenomenon of overtourism: despite a resident population of approximately 750, it has recorded up to 900,000 visits annually. Following the construction of a full-scale replica near Hong Kong in 2012, interest—particularly among Chinese visitors—has increased markedly. In May 2020, however, this dynamic was temporarily suspended. Owing to the Covid-19 lockdown, Hallstatt appeared almost entirely deserted.
Alone in the Wiener Prater
Lockdown in the Amusement Park
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 for Viennese families and a place of longing for generations of children. In spring, the Prater enters its high season, when tourists and local families alike crowd around its stalls. In April 2020, however, everything was different. During the first lockdown, the deserted Prater revealed itself as both captivating and eerily uncanny.
Museum Documentary
The Remarkable Rescue of a Historic Advertising Wall
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 team, as uncertainty lingered over whether the severely deteriorated wall could, in fact, be preserved.