Neon Typography

I thought it would be interesting to look at a cross section of neon typography from one location. The examples below are all from the Can Company in Canton.


This parking sign has a lot of personality for something that seems to have been slapped together to fulfill a basic function. Each syllable runs slightly uphill, having the effect of breaking the sign into two words: PAR KING. I also like that it says RARKING, because the stroke off of the P isn't completely blacked out.


This sign for a tanning salon has a lot going on typographically. “Electric” is all lowercase in an extended typeface that calls to mind wiring or circuitry. “Rays” is upper and lower case in a retro script typeface reminiscent of the Ray Bans logo. Finally, “Tanning Salon” is all caps in a typeface similar to the “electric” typeface, but less extended.


The LensCrafters sign is a simple neon version of their logotype.



Saving the best for last, this is the sign above a side door near the bar area of the Austin Grill. The typeface has a Western feel that communicates the TexMex vibe of the restaurant. The letterforms remind me of rope, and I particularly like the curlicue on the exclamation point.

Graffiti and Urban Typography

Graffiti and urban typography often coincide and overlap, so I wanted to look at both together. All of the photos in this post are by Hrag Vartanian. Hrag is an art critic and writer in Brooklyn, and he's made his extensive Flikrstreams (4000+ images) available for use free of charge under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.

This first image is straightforward graffiti. I love the symmetry of the mirror image 5 and 2.

I'm fairly sure this is type, but it's so stylized it's hard to decipher. This reminds me of the kinds of stylized type my friends and I would develop in middle school for note-writing. Type designed to be undecipherable to the uninitiated. That is, adults.

Here, graffiti and urban typography come together. The stenciled “built for collapse” on the right could be a political statement or simple FYI statement. I like the ambiguity.

This one's definitely a political statement. Urban typography as street art.

Spray paint is generally the medium of graffiti. Here it appears to have been used with a stencil to create the crisp letterforms and gun graphic. Street art? Graffiti? Both? Definitely urban typography.

I'm including this last image, because I respond to it as type; I keep trying to read it. The form in the center left could be an L. The center right seems to say “eve.” Again, I find the ambiguity appealing.

Business Typography

Some interesting “business” typography has been landing in my inbox lately. The viagra/cialis spammers' ever evolving efforts to get past spam filters has lead to these gridded type treatments. Above, the letterforms are straightforward, and, to humans, the words are readable. However, to a spam filter searching for keywords, this just says VGCCLIRHAiiAAEPAS. Below, color blocks are used to create the letterforms, which to a spam filter aren't letters at all.

Fortunately, my spam filter learns quickly, so these messages are now routed directly to my spam folder. Though I kind of like the bitmap typeface below.

Update: I just found another one in my spam folder. A geometric “cialis” cobbled together with the “cheap” from above. Not much thought given to the aesthetics of type here!

The Typography of the Corner Tavern

When considering local flavor typography, my mind immediately turned to that Baltimore fixture, the corner tavern. I took a walk around the block to see what I could see, typography-wise.




At the north end of my block is Salt. Salt is a contemporary take on the corner tavern, featuring new American cuisine. This contemporary outlook is reflected in the design of the whole tavern, including the signage. The lowercase sans-serif letters are mounted slightly off the face of the wall, using light and shadow to created added dimensionality; A horizontal line in the brickwork provides a convenient baseline.




At the south end of my block is Butts & Betty's Tavern. This sign hangs over the corner entrance to the tavern. The typography seems haphazard, pairing a slab-serif with an italic sans-serif. It's a straightforward sign without a lot of thought given to aesthetics.




Across the street from Butts & Betty's is Brewster's Tavern. This tavern changed hands not too long ago, and this is a fairly new sign. The swash on the B echoes the curved form of the rooster's tail. The coloring-in of some of the counters adds a whimsical quality to the letterforms.





Finally, one block west of Butt's & Betty's and Brewster's is Mary's Tavern. This is a very small neighborhood tavern, run out of the front parlor of a private home. The sign appears to be homemade using plastic letters from a hardware store. It's purpose would seem to be purely functional, perhaps to meet legal requirements for signage for a place of business.

Typography Artist Talk

Local typography rock stars, Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals of Post Typography, will be giving an artist talk at UMBC on Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 7:00pm. They will be discussing their work as featured in the UMBC exhibition The Art of Persuasion: Poster Design from 1896 through 2008, and also signing their new book, Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces.

Hand-Painted Typography

The Baltimore Farmers Market is a fantastic place to see hand-drawn and -painted typography. Everything from professionally painted trucks to magic marker on cardboard. Farmers market regulars may have noticed this hand-painted lemonade sign at the Best Fish on Planet Earth booth. If you ever find yourself waiting in line for coffee at Zeke's it'll be right behind you. I love that the sign itself is lemon-shaped, and also that it's clearly seen better days. Here are a few other great examples.

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This Falafel booth sign is a great way to make a large sign out of small materials. Easy to pack up and transport.



Even on simple price signs there is often interesting hand-lettering.



The type's not so interesting here, but the pumpkins are cute.



I can't have a Baltimore Farmers Market post without including the crab truck.

Baseline CSS

Calling all fans of Swiss Graphic Design and typographic standards (that would be me)! Baseline CSS Framework is a free CSS framework that makes it easy to develop websites using a “real” baseline grid.



Baseline began as a way to quickly prototype a website and developed into a full typographic framework. It is a side project of Stéphane Curzi of projeturbain.

Baseline CSS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.