The Stadtschrift Association is opening its second “Mauerschau” bringing long dismantled, individually designed lettering back into public space.

This article first appeared in the online magazine of the Wien Museum.

The typographic DNA of the city

 

Television, photo-house, restaurant: Not only the design of the lettering itself, but also the offers they once advertised seem strangely antiquated today. But neither nostalgia nor the longing for the “good old days” are the driving force behind the Stadtschrift association, which collects these Viennese lettering, conserves them and brings them back into the public domain.

It is the concern about the dwindling individuality of cities, the lack of aesthetic sensibility and the drastically reduced quality of visual communication in today’s cityscape. With the advent of international chains and their uniform coding and the simultaneous dominance of cheap stickers as the technical implementation of choice, the demand for individuality, for expressive typography, even for the durability of business portals has rapidly declined.

Letterings with character

 

This is regrettable in so far as business portals contribute significantly to the flair of a city or district. In Vienna, compared to other cities, many shop signage from the 50s and 60s were preserved for quite a long time, but especially in the last years, there were massive waves of closures. In the past, company signs were all too often simply disposed of, but today they are sought-after collector’s items.

In 2012, the Stadtschrift association began documenting historical Viennese business lettering and saving it from being scrapped. From the beginning, the idea was to bring the signs back into the public space. In September 2014 the first wall exhibition finally opened in the small Sperlgasse in the 2nd district, but had to be taken down again in autumn 2018.

Birgit Ecker and Roland Hörmann are the people behind the Stadtschrift association. They describe their work as quite labour-intensive: following up tips on closures, negotiating with property managers, finding sponsors and getting the signs fit for the wall are just some of the activities that precede a wall exhibition. In the case of Ludwig-Hirsch-Platz, a good one and a half years passed from the first meeting to the installation.

In a few weeks’ time, writings from the districts 6, 12, 14 and 15 will be on display on the premises of the GB*Stadtteilbüro. Roland mentioned a special project in our conversation: After the women’s names in the 6th district and abstract terms in the Carmelite Quarter, it would be great to dedicate a wall to the well known Viennese trade names such as Slama, Osei & Co.

In any case, there would be enough lettering for such a wall.

The stories behind the facades

 

The two describe the reconstruction of the history of the lettering and the associated businesses as a further, equally exciting aspect of their work. The typefaces often bear witness to family businesses that offered their goods and services for generations.

Many of them were institutions in their neighbourhood, for others one travelled all over Vienna because of the special offer. A panel on the wall provides information about the shops and their history and shows the lettering in its original surroundings. Here is an excerpt:

Bonbons

5., Reinprechtsdorfer Strasse 39
Dismantled 2005

The shop windows lavishly decorated, the smell when opening the door unforgettable: Candy stores were the ultimate childhood dream and often tactically cleverly located in the vicinity of cinemas or theatres. The Zuckerlecke no longer exists since 2005. By the time it closed, the “chocolate” was already incomplete, because letters on glass panels were not drilled but glued – which may last surprisingly long, but not forever. The lettering was probably produced by the company Körner & Kloss (1897-2002), which had a patent on this type of mirrored and cambered letters until the 1950s. In a handful of originally preserved candy shops, one can still embark on sweet time travel in Vienna.

Elektro

16., Hasnerstraße 59
Dismantled April 21, 2012

The “Elektro Heyhall” was one of the first font rescues of the association Stadtschrift and had already been shining for four years at their first wall exhibition. The futuristic lettering installed by the Ronovsky company in 1964, especially the lightning “E”, is a typographic homage to electrification. The neon installation was maintained by the employees themselves. Until the mid-1980s it was open six days a week, after that the premises were used as a warehouse. The company still exists to this day.

Gaststätte

22., Breitenleer Straße 244
Dismantled  April 15, 2014

In the last few years, several traditional taverns in Vienna had to close, so that the district newspaper spoke of a “dying out of taverns”. Another affected pub was the “Gaststätte Kopp”, since 1997 better known as “Breitenleerhof”. The elongated area of the inn, which has existed since the 1880s, was purchased by the housing association for private employees in 2013. Rental apartments were built on the property in several parts, the existing beautiful ballroom was preserved. Efforts were made to reinstall the original lettering after the reconstruction, but due to its wide extension no suitable location could be found. A characteristic feature of this lettering is its yielding baseline – it seems to evade the archway at the end of the word.

Kaffee

3., Radetzkystraße 24
Dismatled  March 2, 2016

When Hubert Horky took over the café from his mother in 1964, the location already looked back on a long tradition. The mockery of its owner and the furniture, which remained unchanged until the end, made Kaffee Urania one of the most unique places in town. In January 2016 it was closed, a little later Horky died. The signage, with neon tubes on the entrance side and unlit letters around the corner, dates from 1964. The second part of the design, the Muse Urania, has its home on the “female name wall” in the Hofmühlgasse in the 6th district.

Metalle

2., Taborstraße 35
Dismantled January 15, 2016

This inscription comes from the immediate vicinity of the wall exhibition. The business, founded in 1836, had three main pillars: Towards Tabor Street you could buy hardware, screws and nails by the piece. In Große Pfarrgasse was the department for household goods with exotic items such as honey dispensers and electric bread knives. Those who wanted to have their pressure cooker checked for safety were in the right place at Blasser’s KELOmat service point. In addition, “Blasser” was also a veteran of the Austrian water sports market. Boat fittings, lines and ropes were available opposite in the Große Pfarrgasse. Already in 1905 Ernst Bathelt appeared as Emmerich Blasser’s successor. The chrome letters could also date from this time. At the end of the 1970s Ing. Peter Hahn took over the business. The last owner was Herbert Felfernigg from 2004 on, a proud, traditional shopkeeper.

The area of the 4000 islands (Si Phan Don) in the south of Laos can be described as “he end of the world”. Of the countless islands that lie here in the Mekong only a few are inhabited and only three of them are developed for tourism.

One of them, Don Det, I have been visiting regularly since 2007. Much has changed here since my first visit, the electrification of the islands brought modest prosperity and tourists.

Where there is competition, there is advertising. A tour of the island.

Pallas Athene, Secession, Plague Column – in Vienna, there has always been a great deal of money spent on gilding buildings. However, less attention is paid to the gilded shop fronts and business portals, which became en vogue at the turn of the century and established Vienna’s reputation as a centre of sign painting.

The use of gold conveyed elegance and exclusivity while the glass protected the signs from the elements. Designs range from purely typographical implementations to detailed illustrations in matte and shiny gold. My walk leads to the Vienna’s remaining gildings.

1080, Josefstädter Straße 73:
Moderne Fotografie Carl Zapletal

From the portal of the “Children's Photographer” Carl Zapletal not only the gilded lettering above the entrance no. 73 can be seen, but also the word “Photography” high up on the facade. Zapletal moved to the address in 1923 in order to turn more to portrait photography; he had already achieved fame through his press and motorsport photographs. As early as 1911, he was the first Austrian photographer to photograph from an airplane; his pictures were shown at the International Flight Exhibition (ifa).

1080, Josefstädterstraße 25:
Alte Löwen Apotheke

In 1782 Mathias Moser founded the Löwen-Pharmacy, then situated in the building opposite. It became famous under the founder’s son, who had invented the gas light in the pharmacy’s cellar. In 1816 the first house in Vienna shone here in the light of gas lighting, the Emperor himself came to visit.

Moser also had a good sense for the arts: as shop signs he commissioned Ferdinand Waldmüller to produce four life-size paintings. Today, the works are in the collection of the Belvedere, replicas of which are exposed in the pharmacy.

1080, Piaristengasse 2:
Damen-Herren-Friseur

Most passengers of line 13A probably know the shop with its great 1950s portal and the golden sign only from passing by. It would be worthwhile to take a look, as it is Vienna’s only “cabin salon”. Owner Christine Endres comes from an ancient dynasty of hairdressers and therefore has many anecdotes to tell.

1070, Burggasse 29:
Alte Bäckerei †

The detailed lettering of the corner bar at the foot of Spittelberg shows the range of goods on offer at the turn of the century. “Tasty whey bread, real grain bread and the speciality potato bread” are advertised there along with “flour and semolina from the most renowned steam mills”.

In terms of craftsmanship, the portal is one of the most extraordinary sign painting works in the town. Mother-of-pearl inlays, shiny and matte gold, refined typography: the old bakery pulled out all the stops. Unfortunately it was pasted over in the summer of 2018.

The path leads us further to a highlight of the walk: 
The former piano factory Rudof Stelzhammer in Barnabitengasse 8.

Above the entrance of the former Stelzhammer piano factory, Vienna’s biggest spelling mistake is conspicuously displayed: The Stelzhammer family, who produced pianos there since 1900, spells itself with two “m”. Apparently the sign painter overlooked this and consequently misspelled the name on the two signs in the entrance.

Another charming feature of this gilding:
When light is favourable, it will reflect the words “Rudof Stelzhamer” on the cobblestones of Barnabitengasse.

1010, Bräunerstraße 4-6:
Schuhmacher R. Scheer und Söhne

The Scheer family has been producing the finest custom-made shoes for seven generations. The portal with the richly illustrated gold coat of arms has remained unchanged since 1878 – the family had just become shoemakers to the royal court.

Only two streets away, in Spiegelgasse 3, there is a completely gold-plated portal. The noble banking house Pinschof & Co had the entire façade gilded.

At the end of the walk we visit the enormous sign of
„Carl Siegl Sen. K.K. Priv. Leinen und Tischzeug Fabrik“

Carl Siegl (1802–1889) was one of the largest textile entrepreneurs in Märisch-Schönberg. He founded the company with his sons Robert and Richard, the money was brought in by his wife, daughter of one of the oldest manufacturing entrepreneurs in town. After his death his sons took over, the factory had 1200 employees at the turn of the century.

Literally designed at the kitchen table in post-war Vienna, Karl Reissberger was the first graphic artist in Austria to license his Forte typeface to Monotype in England in the 1950s.
In the late 1990s, the font found its way into the Windows operating system – and thus onto millions of desktop computers worldwide.

Karl Reissberger's legacy contains extensive correspondence with Monotype (he was associated with the company throughout his life as a consultant for typesetting machines), the only thing missing until now was a license agreement. But we found documents for a mysterious “Font Nr 2”.

Research at Monotype UK revealed that “Font Nr 2” had already been sold to Monotype for £150 in 1957; it is the later Forte.

With his daughter Mara Reissberger I flew to London on the tracks of the Forte. Toshi Omagari, senior type designer at Monotype, opened the archive for us.

Toshi Omagari, type designer at Monotype opened the Monotype archive for us. We open the cassette with the label Forte.

A special moment: When do you think those original drawings were last viewed?

Revised, capital H with a lowered bar.
Not approved drafts were clearly marked by dog-ears.

 

Not all of Karl Reissberger's 119 characters were published. We find some never published ligatures, a 3, flattened at the shoulder and some special characters.

The designs were prepared for editing by Monotype’s draftswomen in mirror image. All later published font sizes are based on these drawings.

 

 

Not yet fully developed Trial No. 1 and six months later Trial No. 2, approved by Stanley Morison himself. Morison was a typographical consultant at Monotype from 1923 to 1967 and was responsible for typeface classics such as the Times New Roman.

Conclusion

Forte was designed in 1962 by the Austrian commercial artist Carl Reissberger who was trained as a compositor and later taught typography and drawing in Vienna. The idea for the Forte script font came from the study of plants, individual letter forms being inspired by the long stems and furry heads of the reed.

This description of the Forte and its originator is commonly found.

As far as I know, it would have to be rewritten, because Prof. Karl Reissberger not only always spelled himself with a “K”, he also designed the font before 1956. In the years that followed, the approval process was underway and Forte was probably licensed to business customers by Monotype even before its release in 1962. This is indicated by the subsequently ordered extensions.

It is quite possible, however, that he was really inspired by organic leaf shapes for the Forte. Themes from nature can be found in his entire artistic work.

 

Use in the 1960s to 1980s

After its publication, the forte was widely used, especially in the German-speaking world: Newspaper titles, film posters and advertisements were the preferred areas of application. As it was only published in one cut, it was used almost exclusively in headlines and as a display font. The Forte is also often seen in early Hofer (Aldi) brochures. Karl Reissberger's wife collected the finds.

Taking off on desktops worldwide

 

The release of Office 97 in November 1996 was considered a milestone in software development. The bundle was distributed on CD-ROM or on a total of 44 3½-inch floppy disks and for the first time contained a knobbly font from Vienna: the Forte!

Microsoft Corporation had its own “Typography Group” in the 1990s. Its task was to develop fonts and to optimize purchased typefaces for the operating system. When it came to external fonts, they worked with Monotype as a partner. According to Tom Stephens, former program manager at Microsoft and thus also responsible for the font selection, the choice of Forte for her debut at Publisher '97 involved Vincent Connare, designer of the Comic Sans, in addition to Robert Norton and Andrew Pennock.

From then on, the Forte was included in every Office package for nearly 20 years (until Office 2010, support for which ended in 2015), giving it incredible worldwide distribution. It is still part of the Office Cloud Fonts today.

In terms of distribution, Forte is probably the most successful Austrian font. This can also be seen in the worldwide examples of its use.

Interesting details on the gravestones in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, London. The letters look as if they were applied to the gravestones, their appearance resembles letterpress printing plates.

The secret behind it? Some of the inscriptions were chiseled and then poured or hammered with lead. The abrasion of the sandstone over the centuries made the letters appear three-dimensional. 

The Lead Lettering Index (LLI)
is used to determine
the degree of erosion
of the sandstone:
W = (f (s, t (M, E, P, F))

 The weathering
observed on gravestones
is a product of four factors:
material (M), environment (E),
process (P) and shape (F).

They can be spatially (s)
as well as in time (t).

Source: envf.port.ac.uk

A November morning at the Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam. The style of the pricing of many stands is striking. Market painter Henry van der Horst is accountable for this style. He has been drawing price signs for almost 40 years.

Henry makes his rounds of the Amsterdam markets and takes orders locally. With bold markers and in bright colours he draws his Reclame Kaarten for every kind of offer. And thus gives the city’s markets a subtle visual clasp.

Over the years Henry van der Horst has become quite famous locally. De Volkskrant published a report about him, as well as several design blogs. The Dutch graphic artist Willem Verweijen had documented his work in 2015 and got the hype going.

HenrySignPainter on Instagram

Since my research on the Forte, I encounter the font everywhere. It is not always treated well: It’s subject to bending, twisting and other distortions.

But what can you do if you have been delivered as a font in a bundle together with Wordart?
Here are a few findings from the last few years.

They belong to Amsterdam like the pubs belong to London: Bruin Cafés, cosy pubs where the locals hang out and which remained largely untouched by gentrification and the excesses of tourism. What these cafés have in common is not only the preserved local character, but often playful lettering on their portals, the Krulletters.

I only had a few hours to visit some of the cafés, but Ramiro Espinoza, typeface designer and author of the book De Amsterdamse Krulletters, took me on a tour of his favourite letterings and gave me a deep insight into the past and present of the curly letters. Letters and beer, what a great combination!

Chinatown is a visual challenge in itself, but at the turn of the year, the chaos of Chinese, Thai and English fonts is augmented by an additional layer: The Chinese New Year casts its red-gold shadow. 

On 25 January 2020, more than a fifth of the world's population celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Rat. Preparations are also in full swing in Chinatown. It is the time of calligraphers, decorators, Hell-Money and Chanel paper bags.

Doll-like child figures stand for healthy offspring and family happiness

 

They offer their services directly at the roadside and draw banners for a small amount of money, which are attached symmetrically to the entrance doors of the apartments. These poetic banners have a tradition of over a thousand years.

 

Burning paper has been part of traditional Chinese ancestor worship for thousands of years. Typical Joss Paper was a yellow or white square piece of paper, sometimes coated with gold or silver paint and often showing orange or red additions. This “gold paper” was offered as a burn sacrifice to appease spirits and gods.

From the belief that deceased ancestors had debts to pay in the afterlife, the tradition of burning Hell Money, artificial banknotes with absurdly high nominal values, was born. Typical Hell Money is based on the design of the banknotes of the Republic of China, the front mostly shows the Jade Emperor Yu Di, who is the “Ruler of Heaven” according to Daoist understanding, and the signature of Yánluó, the “King of Hell”. On the back one can see a representation of the “Hell-Bank”. Hell Money is sold in thick bundles and burned in huge quantities at New Year.

Annette An-Jen Liu’s Joss Paper Archive at github.

Nowadays the burning of paper gifts has become more and more bizarre. Whereas in the past it used to be sets of cigarettes, dentures and other everyday goods, today paper replicas of Western consumer goods are in high demand.

From Chanel bags to Lacoste shirts and Gucci shoes to sports cars “Made in Germany”– the whole range of hip brands is available to the ancestors. In 2004, China wanted to stop at least the most extreme excesses of the cult and banned Viagra and paper hostesses.

The excessive burning of the paper offerings is increasingly coming under criticism. Doctors warn of carcinogenic substances found in the ashes. During the holidays, many residents complain about breathing difficulties, irritated mucous membranes and conjunctivitis. In Bangkok, already plagued by high levels of particulate matter, the call for a ban is therefore becoming louder.

Among the inhabitants of Chinatown, too, a rethinking is slowly taking place. Many think that one should not only consider the ancestors but also the inhabitants of this world and at least limit the amount of burnt offerings. According to an article in the Bangkok Post, sales to Joss Papers fell by 20-30% last year.

It is quite possible that the paper gifts will soon have disappeared completely from the cityscape of Chinatown.

As early as March 2018, I was informed that an old advertising sign had been uncovered in the process of dismantling a billboard. The ORF reported about Vienna’s forgotten advertising walls.

In August 2019 the Wien Museum commissioned us to film the removal of the advertising wall for their new online magazine. For one week we worried whether this would work out well.

The shop lettering is to be displayed in the new permanent exhibition of the Wien Museum as a testimony to the fate of Viennese Jews under National Socialism.

Adolf Grünsfeld had founded the shop in 1906, in 1938 it was “aryanised”. His son Hans Grünsfeld fled to Bolivia, where he committed suicide in 1955.

The documentation of the acceptance itself was as emotional as the history of the location: Until the end it was not clear whether restorer Anna Boomgaarden and her team could save the lettering undamaged.

Article in the Wien Museum Magazin

 

Sign painting in reverse gear:
Like about 110 years ago, the lettering was traced on a scale of 1:1, but this time from the wall, so that it could be reconstructed in case of damage.

In the 1950s to 1980s, neon was booming in Hong Kong and had a major impact on the cityscape. Absurdly large installations bathed the streets in this very special, mystical light, as only the flickering gases in neon tubes are able to produce. Filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai used neon in 1995 in Fallen Angels as a formative stylistic device – and thus a monument to the city's lettering.

At the end of the 1990s, the demand for neon signs dropped and producers began to migrate to mainland China, where production was cheaper. New LED technologies and a growing awareness of night-time light pollution increased the pressure on the often illegally constructed neon installations. Starting in 2006, Hong Kong’s city government removed an average of 3,000 signs per year..

 

 

In December 2017 I travelled to Hong Kong to document the remaining neon installations. My explorations took me to all parts of the city, night after night I followed the glow of this magical medium. Even though Hong Kong’s neon may be fading, it has not lost its fascination.

If you want to know more about Hong Kong’s Neon Heritage, you can find extensive information on neonsigns.hk, the website of the M+, Hong Kong’s museum for visual culture. 

. 

Screening
OFFF Vienna

Over the last 17 years, OFFF Barcelona has established itself as one of the world's leading festivals for graphic design, visual communication and digital art, and has given guest performances in metropolises such as London, New York and Moscow. From October 5th to 6th it came to Vienna for the first time, our film was screened on both days.
☞ offfvienna.com

Screening
London Design
Festival

For this year’s London Design Festival, Better Letters are hosting a  triple bill featuring two recent short biopics celebrating the life and times of three retired signwriters, Stan Wilkinson, Josef Samuel and Cliff Headford (RIP). 

Hosted by Jerwood Space within the Bankside Design District, there will be an opportunity to share a drink and ask questions of those involved in the making of these films.

Screening
London Letterheads 

Festival

From 16 to 19 August, over 200 signwriters from 30 countries and five continents met at the 43rd Letterheads Festival in London. On the opening evening of the festival our film about Josef Samuel, the last sign painter of Vienna, was screened for the first time.

For our documentary “When Better Letters met ... Josef Samuel, Vienna’s Last Signpainter” Stuart Freeman visits Europe’s only sign painter museum.

Gmunden at the Traunsee is a picturesque little town. Situated directly on the lakeside, it was a popular summer resort during the k. u. k. Monarchy. Today, stately villas and the narrow, winding old town with its pastel-coloured houses still bear witness to this.

But Gmunden is also a centre for ceramics and calls itself a “ceramics city”. In the narrow streets you can find – among other typographically interesting details – reliefs and lettering made of this unusual material.

A discovery made by chance: At Kwong Fah Press – a family business that has been operating in Chinatown for over 50 years – the Heidelberg is still in daily use. 

They sold the Frankenthal Albert machine a few years ago due to lack of space, but they didn’t want to give the manual away.

The houses in the village of Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut region huddle close together along the narrow strip of shoreline between Lake Hallstatt and a steep mountain slope. Hallstatt’s rich salt deposits have been exploited by mining since 1,500 BC. Hallstatt became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

During the last few years Hallstatt has become the epitome of overtourism: recently the town with its 750 inhabitants recorded around 900,000 visits per year. Since a mirrored replica was opened near Hong Kong in 2012, Chinese in particular want to visit the original site.

None of this was noticeable in May 2020. Due to the Covid-19 lockdown Hallstatt was almost completely extinct.

Most of the skulls in Hallstatt were painted between 1780 and 1900, and the way they were painted was subject to fashionable trends. Skulls with simple wreaths are the oldest, narrow wreaths and colored crosses with outlines represent the most recent style. Flower ornaments on the forehead and later green leaves on the temples – mostly oak, ivy or oleander – and black crosses in the middle of the forehead were also popular.

On the forehead of the skull, the first name and surname of the person are usually written above the date of birth and the date of death, often supplemented by the professional title (senior wound doctor, cassa controlor). A skull from 1983 is decorated with a contemporary snake motif. It also testifies to the honesty of the village community: the gold crown and inlay are clearly visible on the teeth.  

A chance find not far from the monument in honour of the monk Thich Quang Duc, who set himself on fire in Saigon on 11 June 1963 to protest against the oppression of the Buddhists. At a street stall I was struck by the colorful titles of the newspapers. 

In spite of the late hour, the newspaper saleswoman manages to get a good deal: I buy all the available titles from her, as long as they are just colourful. This obviously pleases and amuses her – thus my new collection of international newspapers is opened.

A striking feature of Saigon’s cityscape is the excessive use of awnings as advertising space. Especially small shops and restaurants use these extreme formats to attract attention. The house number is often communicated in large numbers.

The love of the Vietnamese for three-dimensional letters is manifested on the awnings. Almost all lettering shows shadows, outlines, 3-D effects or gradients – or all of them together. The advertisement of the awning manufacturer is obligatory.

As a tonal language, Vietnamese has a large number of letters with diacritical marks to distinguish the tones. The Vietnamese writing system uses seven modified letters. Four of them have separate diacritical characters ( ă, â, ê and ô), while three have the diacritical symbols firmly attached to the letters (as in the case of đ).

Accents such as acute, breve, tilde or sub-point are added. They are used to identify six characteristic tones. An excellent overview of the typographic challenges of the Vietnamese language is provided by vietnamesetypography.com. All these characters in combination with the 3D effects have a very special charm.

On 7 November 2019, conspicuous groups of young people mingled with the usual commuters at Amsterdam Central Station, filming with their iPhones: design enthusiasts from all over Europe had travelled to Studio Dumbar's “Design in Motion” festival.

For 24 hours, all 80 digital screens of the busy Centraal Station were open to the public and presented – without advertising – the latest trends in motion design based on selected works by international artists. Candy for your eyes...

 

A total of 2,738 animations were submitted; the Dumbar team selected and presented the works in curated thematic blocks. Unfortunately, the festival had not made its way to the people in charge at the state railways: At 07.00 in the morning the supervising staff tried to prevent me from filming under threat of passport control.

In the 1950s to 1980s, neon was booming in Hong Kong and had a major impact on the cityscape. Absurdly large installations immersed the streets in this very special, mystical light, as only the flickering gases in neon tubes are able to produce. Filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai used neon in 1995 in Fallen Angels as a formative stylistic element – and thus a monument to the city’s lettering.

At the end of the 1990s, the demand for neon advertising dropped and producers began to migrate to mainland China, where production was cheaper. New LED technologies and a growing awareness of night-time light pollution increased the pressure on the often illegally constructed neon installations. Starting in 2006, Hong Kong's city government removed an average of 3,000 installations per year.

 

 

In December 2017, I travelled to Hong Kong to document the remaining neon installations. My explorations took me to all parts of the city, night after night I followed the glow of this magical medium. Even though Hong Kong’s neon may be fading, it hasn’t lost its fascination at all.

If you want to know more about Hong Kong’s Neon Heritage, you can find extensive information on neonsigns.hk, the website of the M+, Hong Kong’s museum for visual culture.

In 2009, Creative Review magazine published a cover that suddenly made a form of art previously almost unknown in the West popular: the artistic stickers on Mumbai’s taxis.

Ten years later, I went in search of the artists behind the “Mumbai Typo Taxi” to find out what remains of the once splendid stickers to this day.

Creative Review commissioned the Mumbai-based design studio Grandmother India to create the cover in 2009. Kurnal Rawat of Grandmother India had already dealt with the city's typographic idiosyncrasies in the past and initiated the typocity project, an online resource for the city's signage. He and his team designed the taxi, and two of the city's leading taxi artists were won over for the manual implementation: Manohar Mistry and his son Sameer.


Father and son Mistry were not only highly sought-after taxi artists, but had brought the artistic stickers to Bombay in the first place. The idea came from an acquaintance who brought photos of illuminated garbage cans from Dubai – and soon, at the Mistrys’ request, the films themselves. They cleverly used these to give the black and yellow taxis a personal, eye-catching touch – a significant competitive advantage among the approximately 65,000 providers.

In an interview at that time, the two stated that the best times for their craft were probably already gone. I wondered what had become of them, and whether they were still giving the taxis that extra soul.

The catch here: there was no address at all.
Bombay has a population of 23 millions.
The search wouldn’t be easy.

Fotos © Creative Review, Aashim Tyagi
Cover Design, spreads by Kurnal Rawat

Ram

Sticker House

There was one clue: in an interview they mentioned the Ram Sticker House where they bought their adhesive foils. It still exists today – and proved to be a real stroke of luck. 

The small shop in Girgaon is run by Mangilal Rajpurohit and his son, who immediately offered to help in the search for Sameer Mistry (who now runs the shop alone after the death of his father). A few phone calls later an appointment was fixed, and soon we took  a motorbike to Manohar’s workshop.

Sameer Mistry,
artist with a fine blade

Sameer Mistry was evidently pleased with my interest in Typo Taxi and his work in general. He showed me photos of past taxi jobs and a variety of extremely small-scale works, including the artwork for the film JUGAARD, a tribute to Mumbai’s diversity. He had manually hand-cut all of this with a scalpel!

We quickly agreed:
Based on a business card he would create an artwork “Bombay Style” with my logo and the phrase “Tom Koch Graphic Wallah.”

But time was limited, as I had to leave the very next day.

He starts by cutting out the flamed background from countless layers of reflective foil, sticking tongue after tongue to each other. Thus, little by little, the dynamic background is created, which he constantly adds to, adapts and corrects with new pieces of foil. Later, the outlines of the logo are transferred freehand and cut out with a scalpel. 3D effects and shadows are applied, the logo is transferred to a dark background, ornaments and fine lines are worked out. Not once does he hesitate, get stuck or even stick.

All these steps are performed in an incredibly calm, almost contemplative way: cutting, stripping off the remains, touching, pressing down. Over and over again. You can tell the man has been doing this for 17 years.

The next day I pick up the artwork.
It is vibrant, detailed and very Bombay.
The search was definitely worth it.

 

A Bollywood Lovestory:

Bombay and the Premier Padmini Taxis

The Indian version of the Fiat 1100 had already made its debut on the subcontinent in 1964 under the name Fiat 1100 Delight. Renamed Premier President in 1965, the cars were finally sold from 1974 onwards under the name Premier Padmini – named after the legendary Indian Queen – and took the hearts of the population by storm.

Especially in Bombay they shaped the cityscape, as the city government had preferred the Premier Padmini to other brands such as the Ambassador and had settled the production in the city. This was followed by an indescribable boom.

The Premier Padmini became the car of choice for taxi drivers in Mumbai because it was economical, offered a relatively large luggage space and could be repaired anywhere in small roadside mechanic shops. In its heyday in the 1990s, around 65,000 Kaali-Peeli taxis were registered in the streets of Mumbai. They were stars in Bollywood movies, even popular songs were dedicated to them.

The Padminis had only one disadvantage: they all looked the same.

Taxi drivers therefore began to individualise them, using film stickers on the rear windows to provide information about the location (Bandra) and the districts in which the taxi was licensed to drive. Personal messages (King of the Kings), lateral ornaments and artistically decorated number plates were additionally introduced.


But in 2003 the situation changed: the city administration banned cars that had been registered for more than 20 years from Bombay’s streets for reasons of air pollution. This was clearly aimed at the Padminis, whose production had already been stopped in 2000. From then on their number began to dwindle, and other car brands gradually took over the taxi market.

Today only 50 Padminis are still driving around Mumbai, by the end of 2020 they will have disappeared from the cityscape for good.

With them, a large part of the artistic stickers created by taxi artists like Samir Manohar disappears. Recently, the police have taken action against the stickers because of alleged threats to traffic safety.

The taxi drivers are losing the possibility of individual presentation and the city is losing its rolling icons. Whether taxi artist Sameer Mistry will still be creating his filigree works of art in 10 years is written in the stars.

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Cars, buses, countless yellow Ambassador taxis, rickshaws pulled by men and the only tramway in India: the streets of Calcutta are in a permanent state of emergency.

However, for Durga Puja, the largest religious festival in Bengal, they are as if they were empty – and reveal many a typographic detail.

A day in the streets of the city.

Park Street Cemetery was one of the earliest non-church cemeteries in the world and probably the largest Christian cemetery outside Europe and America in the 19th century.

Today, the cemetery, which was opened in 1767, is surrounded by a brick wall that shields an eclectic mix of tombs, mausoleums and tropical vegetation from Calcutta’s hectic daily life.

The design of the nearly 1900 tombs followed a variety of design influences from European Gothic to Classical Antiquity and Indo-Saracenic styles, all of which seem to get mixed up in this labyrinth of obelisks, cairns, urns and sarcophagi.

The signatures of the constructors (sculptors), who often immortalized themselves in the lower right corner, are striking – similar to the sign writers in Europe.

Stick no bills!

Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, is considered the intellectual centre of India. Its inhabitants are known for their passion for politics and their affinity for art and literature. The city’s cultural offer is correspondingly large.
This is also reflected in the street scene: literally from every wall, political slogans, local services, film posters and other messages compete for the attention of passers-by. The overlays of these ephemeral messages seem almost poetic.

While the big film distributors put up posters nationwide, the local film houses search for cheaper alternatives: often the large formats are supplemented by monochrome, cheaply reproduced posters with the location, match days and admission prices.

Kolkata is full of pilots. At least, if you follow the signs on the public buses, on whose doors the word “Pilot” is painted in bold letters on the driver’s side, while on the opposite side “Emergency Gate” is emblazoned.

None of these detailed lettering is like the other, they are all hand painted and often decorated with floral ornaments or decorative elements. These colourful, individual letterings are a special feature of Kolkata and characterise the cityscape of the City of Joy.