Blog > Archive by tag 'Books'

Stadt Alphabet Wien (City Alphabet Vienna)

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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/

Margaret Kilgallen: In the Sweet Bye and Bye

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What else is there to say about Margaret Kilgallen?Margaret Kilgallen has become a major artist. Her work is highly influential, she’s one of the leading lights of the art movement that’s been dubbed “Beautiful Losers” She was highly prolific, and she died from breast cancer at the age of 33. In a short amount of time, she left behind an incredible body of work. Her work echoed and fused elements of folk art, contemporary urban life, sign painting, and a lost era of Americana. She managed to combine these elements into something entirely new. The best documentation of her work is an exhibition catalogue titled, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” Most of the 200 + page book contains color reproductions of her work, as well as a few short essays, and an informative interview. The book itself is a work of art; seeing the book design and cloth binding, you know it’s something special. Looking at this book you can see her legacy; yet somehow feel a certain sadness knowing that such a creative person’s life was cut too short, and be left wondering what amazing work she would have gone on to make.
We the Motmots, love Margaret Kilgallen’s work and we wanted to carry this book in our shop for ages. I went to the Redcat Gallery and purchased them myself, and I actually lugged these copies over from Los Angeles, stashed in my suitcase. Just so we could hustle you a few copies at the entirely great price of € 35,- I believe we are one a very small number of shops in Europe to carry this book. Just so you know.