This is Berlin - again! This time the photos shown here come from an entirely different source: they were taken at the Buchstaben Museum (http://www.buchstabenmuseum.de/), which is a tiny yet meaningful (and playful) display of... Neon lights - precisely. Except that the point is not their being glowing. The aim of the museum is to preserve and document letterforms, as written on their homepage, as well as to plan "events designed to develop an appreciation for typography and for the items on display".
What I found very interesting is the opportunity to see various "fonts" applied to specific, real-life examples (a fishmonger's shop, a café and so on), with styles and "tricks" that change in time: the three photos below, for instance, the light with the glowing "W" comes from the thirties or the forties, if I am not mistaken. I love the "r" and "t" in the first photo, the way they are linked - it is a very peculiar graphic solution; and I found the "G" in the third picture very smooth and... Gentle.
The remaining two photos were taken with a more "scientific" approach in mind: here one learns how it is actually possible to fabricate such neon lights... Or at least, how this was done up to the invention and success of LEDs, I suppose. It is then almost natural, I think, to realise that this museum and its collection are not only about aesthetics; there is a true interplay of art and science/technology. The perspective might thus change, as a particularly smooth and curly typeface is not only nice to look at, but also likely to have been quite a challenge to produce as the neon light that is displayed right in front of you. :)
I imagine that it did make sense to gradually switch to LEDs - perhaps we (as a civilisation) should even rethink critically this sort of "glittery and 'must be eye-catching' culture of signs and messages".
I believe it is important that places like the Buchstaben Museum exist, because they do act as a "memorandum" of a few examples of virtuous human creativity and ingeniosity, all of which are aspects to respect and treasure.
A note -- While I was visiting the museum I happened to glance at a pile of small leaflets, each one with a big green "M" on it - I took one with me, and discovered this website: http://www.motaitalic.com/. It is not a very easy task to define what "Mota Italic" truly is - it is a gallery/shop in Berlin, but I think it is fair to say that it is mainly a proper type foundry. This means that if you visit their website and fancy one of their typefaces, you can purchase them and start using them when you write a document on your laptop, for example. I then had a relatively extensive look at the website itself: one page that caught my attention was http://www.motaitalic.com/typefoundry/fonts/gemma/rotalics - do not get me wrong, I love standard italics, but this "rotalics" does look interesting, too!
A second note, as important as the first -- If you don't know (or forgot) where the title of this post comes from, I suggest you check this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsX03LOMhI. ;) [I am not entirely sure about all the words as they are shown in this video, but most of them seem right to me!]
No comments:
Post a Comment