holloway rd, london

highbury, london

downtown los angeles

I had no idea what to expect of Los Angeles – our airline tickets were purchased on a whim. My travelling companion was very well acquainted with the city, and I was there to assist him on two days of research before five days of vacation. Incidentally, I had recently purchased an LA-inspired typeface, but it did not figure into my preconceptions of the city.


In the Toy District small shops court your business via painted advertisements on brick walls and beautiful extruded lettering on signs while the sounds of rapid-fire Spanish and hearty laughter spill into the streets.


Many buildings are being gutted in the face of extensive downtown renewal. I am not entirely sure what product or service this strange business once offered. (Edit: mystery solved.)


Across the eerily deserted street.


I shot a number of beautiful addresses.



Cerrado los sabados. Pockets of downtown LA are so quiet on Saturdays, while others are not.



In the early decades of the twentieth century numerous palatial theatres were built along South Broadway, a historic area currently undergoing revitalization to restore the entertainment to the entertainment district – imagine black-and-white movie stars and ticker-tape parades. The letters that remain on this marquee are so ambiguous that I stopped trying to make sense of its last message almost immediately, mesmerized by the perfect letter placement and colour patterns of history. (Compare to effects of time on type in this post.)


Up Spring Street I suppose you could park your car in this garage but it might get impounded – this sign informs you of their zero-liability regulations in a few hundred mostly illegible words. Anyways, this is where you'd park for the shortest walk to the world's largest type.

Big Ugly

Okay, I'm going to be a party pooper and post some not so beautiful examples of type. However, these examples are massive, huge and unavoidable (kinda like a bad hangover).

The first is the Rogers Centre (formerly the Sky Dome) in Toronto. Since I live just a stone's throw away from this beast, it's permanently etched in my brain. I would bet these are the largest letters in the city. I think it's pretty sad that a corporations logo is so hugely branded on what is supposed to be a major cultural institution.




Next is a sample right in the heart of the downtown condo cancer (um, right where I live). However, I secretly love how the panels move up and down to create different shapes and graphic compositions. I just hope they put a grocery store in that thing.

united kingdom (of type)

these are some images from 'back home' in the UK which i shot last year, it's northern england so plenty of 'old' industrial signs

unhomies

not really 'found' but 'created' by my friend jarr geerligs, he makes them by walking around on days when the rubbish is placed on the streets in amsterdam, you can see the whole set by following the link to his flickr set... sweet idea

ypso

i caught this sign just before it disappeared (the end of cinema 'calypso' in amsterdam which has now been completely demolished) or is it called a movie theater in north america?

cast-iron type

i spent a weekend at my dad's in burgundy (france) in the summer and came across some classy old cast-iron typography...

trim

this a sort of instruction diagram/advertising sign on a gym it reads: 'weights/fight/trim/ball sports'

sign your name in... uhm... chewing gum

my friend pam sent me these pics she took in verona, italy... the location is the house of julia (you know from romeo + julia) it's been turned into a sort of shrine much like jim morisson of the doors' grave in paris... people have stuck bits of paper on a wall, scrawled their names in grafitti, chained padlocks to the gate and stuck chewing gum on the wall with their names written on it... how weird...

'truck tyre' poetry on the beach

new contributor - me studio (hello from me)

well hello there, i've been asked to join in and here are some of my pics from a recent visit to sicily, i also post found type regularly on my blog (www.mestudio.info) so expect some more soon (Tokyo, France and the UK for example)

toronto east

old painted signage on one of the buildings (destined to be "reclaimed" as condos) in the distillery historic district.




once you enter the main gooderham & worts brewsite (now full of expensive shops and various arts organizations), you are greeted by various vestiges of the original structures, such as this metal sign. it looks like it was cut using some rotary and other hand tools, and filled in with some sort of material (black paint or other filler, perhaps?).


on the eastern edge of the distillery lies one of toronto's oldest (and now closed down) greasy spoons, the canary.




and finally, i can't help but post some new and old type on posters outside the young centre.

Villatype on Hoefler & Frere-Jones

There is a great link to Joe's post over at H&FJ. As well as some other links to found type. Enjoy!

If you aren't familiar, H&FJ designed Gotham and, one of my favourites, Verlag

holloway rd

layers of newspaper and vinyl type in abandoned shops, North London.

dalston massive

large scale graffiti in east London.