More than words

Writings have been part of the street design for generations. You could find various styles, often shop owners put their "handwriting" across the shopwindows: neon was the ultimate design, next to bold letters, made of plastic, that crowned shops. No matter how small a shop was, the writing was substantial.
The writings have shaped our environment in the city for decades - until international chains one after the other took over one shop after the other. As a consequence of the international chains those shops that where too small to be of any interest for the chains had to go out of business. With the shops those letters entered our collective memory. They become extinct. No time for grieving, not today!

A few young group of designers started to collect those words and letters. They are driven by their love for typo. And they love to hunt. They hunt for writings. They just know when a shop is going to close for good and then they lie in wait for the right moment and take care of the writings before someone comes and destroys them.

Today they opened a small exhibition. The curator said "What you see in the room is just the dot of an "i"", a tiny part of their huge collection. They wish to be able to present their collected words in a spacious room someday in the near future. Where design meets retro meets our past and collective memory.

I am a big fan of these vectorised writings, placed them on the explanatory cards, so you can compare the various designs

 The old CA-Bankverein-logo. Was before my time. ;-)

 A cute letter mess in a corner

This was today's opening.
The exhibition runs until January 31, 2014 at GB* 7/8, Lerchenfelderstraße
Light therapy at its best!

xo Paula