[Reader-list] Heritage Signage Disappearing

[Vishal Rawlley]

Conversation thread started from>  http://bombay-arts.com/signs_gone/

Dear Shuddha, Aman, Kabi (and the additional people this is going out to)

The Typocity project (documenting signage and typeface in Mumbai -
www.typocity.com) has been well publicised. It was featured in the Mid Day,
talked about in Time Out, DNA people know about it; it was also featured in
several art and design magazines. We also conducted a number of
presentations and workshops in collages and other forums. I have also
personally spoken to many shop and restaurant owners about preserving their
old signage (one restaurant owner even has a laminated printout of the
typocity website page featuring his restaurant proudly displayed at the
counter).

Months of labour on the project over three years had left me exhausted. But
it is now time to revisit it and take stock. Change is inevitable and no
matter what you and me think, the individual proprietors will make their own
aesthetic choice and pragmatic decisions. So some signs went away and I
could only sigh. However what got my goti is when I rushed into the Eastern
Watch shop to scold and complain to the owner for changing the sign, only to
realise that it was the BMC that forced him into this. Another regret was
that I had never managed to get a picture of this landmark sign because of
sheer bad luck and this haunted me whenever I passed by and each time I
reminded myself to do it soon, and then I saw it gone. Damn! But luckily the
owner has a a photograph from 1920s (that is what he claims about the old
photo I had posted. See: http://bombay-arts.com/signs_gone/ and
www.easternwatch.in ) which shows the original signage. It would have been
wonderful to compare this with a recent photograph of the same sign and see
how immaculate it still was - in bright red colours. I noticed the sign's
disappearance after I returned from a long trip abroad. I wonder whether
there are others who noticed this disappearance. (The PUKAR (
www.pukar.org.in) office and the Times of India office are both a stone's
throw away from Eastern Watch.)

Another thing is that the recent corporate retail boom is speeding up the
demise of private businesses. Old shops are becoming franchises or revamping
themselves to look just like one. So along with the BMC's callousness, this
has given me the impetus to revisit the Typocity project.

What I need help with is in connecting with some heritage lobbyists, or
better, a BMC officer who would listen. Could I use the RTI act in some way?
I am very inept at submitting forms, filing applications and drafting formal
letters. Government departments spook me out, but I can learn. And yes
additional campaigners will surely help. When you do see a good signage,
please tell the shop/ restaurant/ depot owner that what they have is
precious - this is a really effective approach. Please tell them that they
should never convert their bakery into a Foodland and do buy as many cakes
you can from them. (The lady at American Express bakery remembers me for
this. Printouts of ads from old newspapers about this 1930s institution are
proudly framed even in their new branch now.) Many owners already have an
attachment to the old world and all it needs is a young person to reaffirm
the charm and then they can get very protective about their heritage on
their own.

In certain cities some nice attempts have been made to restore old signs. In
Chicago, for example, the new owners try to retain the old sign even if it
is not relevant to their business. A hip cafeteria will retain the sign of
the clock repair shop that they have now come to occupy, and even call their
cafe Clockworks Cafe. It is a crusade against indiscriminate advertising.
Can Foodland be perhaps made to see some sense? Can their sign say Kayani
Stores - and in small: a Foodland outlet. Couldn't it even be a nice
business model, as people like to buy food from an old and trusted place. In
Montreal some people are collecting old signs that have to be taken off and
are trying to create a museum for these. Funds for this are collected, for
now, from private donors and the storage space has been obtained for free.

So if you know advertising people from the agencies that are designing the
branding for Foodland and Spencer's and Farm Fresh please speak to them. If
you know gallery owners or industrialists with some vacant warehouse space,
please ask them if they could store some precious signs in there for a
while. If through signage reform we can create an awareness about a certain
ethos, then it might even impact architecture design and shop layout design
and city planning! A signage movement is easier to proceed with than
fighting the builders lobby. But if a certain ethos catches on then the
trend followers shall simply follow.

Thanks for your ideas and suggestions so far. I look forward to all the
press support and any other inputs that can help this cause. I am not
leading this movement; it is as much anyone's cause as mine as long as they
feel the same way about signage and heritage and advertising etc. So do
write in.

Thanks,
Vishal


p.s. Shuddha, I do know about www.dafont.com and we did make digital
typefaces out of some found fonts (a very tedious exercise, as not all
characters of the font-set are present in the found font.) Some enthusiastic
students from typography major in J J school of arts have shown a keen
interest in this area and anyone else who finds a typeface they like on the
Typocity website - without needing to scour the city - is free to make a
font out of it. This can be an on ongoing exercise. Some people want to
commercialise this whole venture - I am not very keen. My main interest
is in seeing the heritage signs where they belong rather than on my screen
or on a T-shirt.)


On 9/15/07, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dear Vishal,
>
> Many thanks for your posting on disappearing signage. As an avowed fan
> of typographic curiosities I have long been an admirer of your efforts
> to document the typographic diversity of Bombay.
>
> I share your concern about the disappearance of signage, because of the
> ham handed ways in which 'heritage' is interpreted by municipal
> authorities. Perhaps one thing that could be done is a small travelling
> exhibition based on your work in colleges, and other arts institutions
> in Bombay. And with your documentation, it should not be impossible to
> convince some of the Bombay papers, say DNA or Mid Day, or even Time Out
> Mumbai to publish some articles on the subject. Then maybe, the
> 'heritage' lobby itself may be persuaded to step in and realize that the
> typographic history of Bombay is as much a part of 'heritage' as
> anything else. I am sure that there are some people from DNA and Mid Day
> on this list.
>
> Perhaps they could come out and take this forward. I thought I would
> post in reply to your post because typography is somthing that I feel
> really strongly about,
>
> I hope that other people come up with other suggestions,
>
> best
>
> Shuddha
>
>
> > Friends,
> >
> > In 2002 the Typocity project ( www.typocity.com) was initiated to
> document
> > typefaces and signage styles in public spaces of Bombay. Since then,
> many of
> > the old signs that we documented are slowly vanishing. However, I was
> most
> > distressed to find that some of this heritage is being destroyed by the
> > municipal corporation itself in the name of protecting and
> > restoring heritage structures. Nothing can be more absurd.
> >
> > Please follow this link to see the pictures of replaced signs and find
> out
> > more: http://bombay-arts.com/signs_gone/  Do excuse the quality of some
> of
> > the recent pictures as they were taken on the spur with a phone-camera.
> If
> > anyone has better pictures of the recently replaced Eastern Watch sign
> > please share it with me.
> >
> > I am desperately looking for suggestions and ideas to counter this lack
> of
> > sensitivity by the municipal corporation. I shall be very grateful for
> any
> > help.
> >
> >
> > Best,
> > Vishal
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