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On display in the Japan Poster Shop showroom: the huge B0 billboard for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a monumental survivor from the era of roadshow science fiction.
The World of Japanese Film Posters
Designed to Disappear
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Europe fell under the spell of Japonisme. The visual language of a country that had only recently opened its doors to the West transformed painting, graphic design, fashion and the decorative arts. More than 150 years later, Japan is once again inspiring a renewed fascination around the world. A glance at today’s social media makes it clear that a new generation has developed an appreciation not only for Japanese pop culture, but also for the country’s everyday aesthetics, craftsmanship and design heritage. One indication of this shift came during Asian Art Week at Christie’s in New York last spring. Under the title Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Reimagines Tradition, the auction house presented anime, manga, film posters and popular culture within the broader context of Japanese art and design. It marked a significant moment: for perhaps the first time, original Japanese film posters were presented not merely as collectibles, but as cultural artefacts worthy of standing alongside more established forms of Japanese art.
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.
In the Wien Museum Depot
A Visit to the Prater Whale
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 the early 1950s—delighted visitors with its playful water fountain, captivating not least the younger among them. In 2013, however, the restaurant closed its doors, and with it seemed to come the end of the whale.
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.
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.