Back Alley Typography 2

In my first post I covered some nice typography that I found in alleys in the downtown core of my hometown. Here I want to cover some others that linger in the shadows of Cranbrook waiting to be discovered.

This first sample appears to be sand-blasted or hand-carved. It is at the back of a local furniture emporium that occupies the entire length of one block of our historic downtown. Their logo has so many versions that their idea of branding is obviously just as fluid as the script here. This sign has obviously been back there for some time, but it’s hard to date precisely because the wood could have been aged prior to the text being cut into it.

This text appears to be adapted from those back-lit marquis signs with the rails to hold in letters with clear plastic backgrounds. In this case, this nice gothic sans is adapted for backdoor use with the help of some packing tape. The company that owns the back door is a silk-screening shop, so you’d think they could take the time to screen their own sign.

Once in a while you come across a surprise like this one: Pippins is a ladies consignment clothing shop, and I was surprised to see this nice, well articulated, evenly leaded, modern sans sign at the back of their store. The only thing I could change would be to tighten the kerning between the V & A pair and kern the RIV in PRIVATE out a bit. Picky picky.

There are times in every typographers life that space is a consideration. The most obvious choice for this hand-lettered sign is vertical orientation of the text, carefully articulated in a fine-bristled brush… Okay so maybe this one was done in frustration when the big Escalade from Calgary parked there for the third time that week to nip across to the Sammy (some call it a gentleman’s club but let me assure you there are no gentle men in there) for the afternoon show. At any rate, the hasty brush letters show a level of impatience that comes from the necessity generated by repetitive aggravation.

Sometimes you just need to be heard. This traditional stencil typeface spans more than 10 feet (count the bricks… those are cinder blocks, not common chimney bricks). Astonishingly, the kerning is quite nicely done, and the baseline extremely straight, assuming that the stencil was laid out one letter at a time using a giant cardboard or lexan stencil. As with the past post, I’d be happy to see your own examples. Send them to me at mike [at] bluebeetlecreative dot com and my favourite pick will get a numbered, limited edition letterpress woodcut print from the vault.