Posts about Lettering
Main content
Signs of Saigon
Tracing Old Saigon
Inspired by the Signs of Saigon project by Steffi Neukirchen, I set out on my first trip to Ho Chi Minh City in December 2019 with the expectation of encountering a wealth of historic lettering. As it turned out, it proved less straightforward than expected.
Amsterdam’s Krulletters
Letters and Lager
They belong to Amsterdam much as pubs belong to London: bruin cafés—intimate, traditional establishments frequented by locals and, for the most part, still largely untouched by gentrification and the excesses of tourism. What unites these cafés, beyond their preserved local character, are the often playful letterings at their entrances, known as krulletters.
Albert Cuyp Markt, Amsterdam
The Market Signpainter: Henry van der Horst
A November morning at the Albert Cuyp Market in Amsterdam. The distinctive style of the price signs at many stalls immediately catches the eye. Responsible for them is the market signwriter Henry van der Horst, who has been producing hand-lettered price cards for nearly four decades.
Kolkata’s hand-painted buses
Pilot!
Kolkata seems to be full of pilots. At least if one follows the inscriptions on its public buses. On the driver’s side door, the word “Pilot” is often painted in bold letters, while the opposite side prominently bears the designation “Emergency Gate.” No two of these meticulously crafted inscriptions are alike. Each is hand-painted, frequently embellished with floral motifs or other decorative elements.
Deserted streets in India? An uncommon sight.
Empty streets
Cars, buses, countless yellow Ambassador taxis, hand-pulled rickshaws, and India’s only tramway: the streets of Kolkata exist in a near-constant state of movement and congestion. Yet during Durga Puja, the most significant religious festival in Bengal, this intensity briefly subsides. The streets appear almost emptied, revealing a quieter urban surface in which numerous typographic details come into view.
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.