This is exactly the kind of book that sends my inner-design-geek into a tizzy.
If you’re a design geek, when you travel to a new place, you can’t help but notice the interesting signage. If you walk around Vienna, when you notice the signage, you are treated to something that is uniquely Viennese.
These old Viennese shop signs seem to defy many conventions of typographic style, many of the shop signs feature custom scripts and sans-serif fonts. Very few of these signs make use of an identifiable or recognizable typeface. These designs were all made by master sign makers, but not by typographers or graphic designers. The signs are all amazingly crafted, yet you can still see the mark of the sign-maker’s hand. This is before the advent of Arial, laser-cut signs, and the Cooper Black-ifcation of every sign on the block.
Photographer and Graphic Designer Martin Ulrich Kehrer set out on a exhausting mission; he spent 4 years exploring all of Vienna’s 23 districts, and took over 2000 photos. The book is 144 pages long and features over 200 color photos of street signs from all of Vienna’s 23 distinct districts. Stadt Alphabet Wien, captures the distinctive typography of a bygone era-before it’s completely gone. This book gives you a unique view of a city and it’s particular visual language. It serves two purposes; it’s a book about design and typography, and it’s a book about a city.
Stadt Alphabet Wien (City Alphabet Vienna)
By Martin Ulrich Kehrer with and afterword by Walter Pamminger (In German)
144 pp. paperback, Swiss brochure binding
€18,- in the Motmot Shop

for more information: http://www.stadtalphabet.at/

• posted July 15th, 2009 by steve |
• categories: English
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