The Business of Type:
A consideration of local business signage in Otara, South Auckland, New Zealand.
Otara, NZ. 2013 | David Lewis Sinfield
Introduction: Loss and replacement
There is no disputing the fact that typographically, the Auckland Central Business District (CBD) is guilty of genericisation. Walking through the streets one might be in any equivalent urban space, anywhere in the world. As the corporate branding machine flexes its muscles and confidently replaces local identity with culturally non-descript aesthetics, it eats away at local businesses, oblivious to community traditions and their graphic voices.
Advertising the entrance to a scrap metal yard
Travelling through such areas one encounters an eerie feeling of déjà vu because the architecture and company signage appear so similar. From the positioning of displays on a building, to the colour and materials used, there is little to trouble a seamless flow of corporate homogenisation. This hasn’t happened by chance. It has been produced (in conscious detail) by graphic design agencies hired by large companies. Although this phenomenon is clearly evident in CBDs, it can also be seen in towns and suburbs where local businesses are slowly squeezed out and replaced by ‘variations of sameness’. This homogenisation enables smooth branding to secure recognition and dominance over small, established cultural identities. In the process, what have often been generationally owned family businesses begin to make way for franchises and multinational chains.
Mechanical garage Otara, NZ (Warrant of Fitness. $20 one of the cheapest in NZ)
A reflective journey
I teach graphic design at the Auckland University of Technology close to Auckland’s C.B.D. On my way to work each morning I travel through one of New Zealand's poorest areas, Otara in South Auckland. Otara has one of the highest unemployment figures in the country and one of the lowest family incomes in New Zealand. The population comprises mainly Pasifika people from Tonga and Samoa.
Auckland's C.B.D and Otara could not be more different. Although only a fifteen-minute car ride separates them, one might assume one had travelled across the border of another country. What is immediately evident is the contrasting level of financial investment in the respective areas.
The minimal amount of advertising
Time and materials
However, unlike the C.B.D., Otara has preserved distinctive examples of an inimitable, cultural vernacular. As I drive through the town I immediately notice local branding and signage that carries not only unique approaches to design but also the richly evocative effects of time. Many of Otara’s commercial signs have not been retouched in years. Age (as wear and tear) is something scrupulously avoided in corporate branding, yet in these signs it operates as a signifier of permanence; a ‘belongingness’ that forms part of an ongoing, joyous, vernacular of cultural uniqueness. These signs have been there as the local kids grew up, they have formed landmarks in people’s lives. They have offered a form of conversation between local people and local enterprise.
Sign advertising scrap car parts
Many of these signs have been made by local people, ‘inexperienced’ with the conventions of typography and sign writing. Paint and surface have often been pragmatic decisions. Colour and surface gloss have been as a consequence of what was available at the time. Where signs have been painted by professionals they are often anachronisms. They are hoardings that speak with the now obsolete voice of a local sign writer whose brushes, rulers and guilding equipment have long faded from the industry. The irregularities of once fashionable typefaces do not have the impeccable currency of a modern digital font with its perfect tolerance and genericised application. The voices of these old signs are accented. Their dialect is emphasised as time fades, peels and crackles the volume and clarity of their voices.
Weathered hand painted wooden sign. Bakers Otara, NZ
Pragmatic type
The uniqueness of these signs is also revealed in their distinctive typographical treatments. The informal vernacular of much local signage draws from, and speaks back to the street, and a kind of authentic exchange occurs as a consequence. The humour, pragmatism and personality evident in them emphasises uniqueness in contrast to the standardising and homogenising one encounters in Auckland’s C.B.D.
The uniqueness of these signs is also revealed in their distinctive typographical treatments. The informal vernacular of much local signage draws from, and speaks back to the street, and a kind of authentic exchange occurs as a consequence. The humour, pragmatism and personality evident in them emphasises uniqueness in contrast to the standardising and homogenising one encounters in Auckland’s C.B.D.
Ruskin (1857) said “It is not the material but the absence of human labour which makes things worthless”. (p. 45) When we look at these cheap hand-produced signs we see that they bear the rich marks and idiosyncrasies of local people talking typographically to their community. The hoardings may be understood as both type and image. Their odd reversed letter, spelling errors or strangely spaced words operate as a kind of vernacular irreverence. They are the voices of local businesses speaking in a local dialect, to local people. Their marks of making are human and explicit.
Personality is not hidden but celebrated because the retailers and services they promote are known as identities rather than franchised phenomena.
Example of a professional hand painted sign
The cultural politics of typography
As a graphic and typographical designer I am drawn to the sense of authenticity in these signs. I am interested in their typographical ‘breaks with convention’. Typography is often seen, as the subtle hero of graphic design, as good typography more often than not, will go unnoticed while bad examples will stand out. Yet ideas surrounding what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ typographic design are of course, culturally constructed.
As a graphic and typographical designer I am drawn to the sense of authenticity in these signs. I am interested in their typographical ‘breaks with convention’. Typography is often seen, as the subtle hero of graphic design, as good typography more often than not, will go unnoticed while bad examples will stand out. Yet ideas surrounding what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ typographic design are of course, culturally constructed.
Salen (2001) notes that typographic treatments can operate as a form of cultural dominance. She suggests that typography operates as a "visual voice over, which constitutes a... symbolic environment, as well as the organic process by which a standardized voice is generalized across an entire range of cultural expression" (p.134). Thus faces like Cooper Black, Helvetica, Bell Gothic, Arial, Univers, Century School Book, and Times New Roman have become ubiquitous voices to which we have grown accustomed in corporate signage. Salen suggests these faces are utopian and generic, "belonging nowhere, region less, without accent" (ibid.). In a mediated, global environment, she suggests they have no dialect and no affiliation to region and, as seemingly non-aligned; they are culturally superficial and stereotypical.
Tire shop. Sign made from polystyrene
Typefaces like these operate as the dominant voice of the corporate world. They have established, regular leading and kerning that conform to Eurocentric conventions. Against them 'otherness' is demarcated. Thus the standardised conventions of their use Salen suggests, mark "exclusionary distinctions between standard and non-standard 'speakers' (ibid.). Conversely, typographical features we encounter in the Otara signs are distinctively non-standardised (in fact their non-standardised nature is part of their unique way of speaking to us). As a consequence, these local signs are clearly regionally located and expressive. They are the distinct 'voice' of the unique urban business culture inside which they function… but they serve to demarcate a local dialect from the smoothly generic typographical treatments of corporate brandings.
Tire shop. Sign made from polystyrene
The marks of physical making
The images in this chapter photographically reflect upon a fading vernacular. We may read them as records of time and culture. We encounter in them the idiosyncratic, socio-economic voice as paint on wood. By comparison the signage in the CBD is arguably devoid of personality and character. This is partly because it does not bear the physical marks of making. As Kepes (1994, p.187) notes, “each tool and each material has its own idiom of movement”. These signs have no brush marks or discrepancies, there are no mistakes, they are perfect, but equally they are soulless. Orlebeke (2006, p.57) reminds us that such seamless, standardised productions can lack a sense of authenticity and integrity. He suggests that it is the authenticity of handmade objects that makes them valuable. “It is their humanness that shines through, and this is the thing we so desperately crave. Handmade objects are ultimately about direct and meaningful communication. It is the connection between people that we seek as designers, and it is through the use of our hands that we can make our work felt.”
The images in this chapter photographically reflect upon a fading vernacular. We may read them as records of time and culture. We encounter in them the idiosyncratic, socio-economic voice as paint on wood. By comparison the signage in the CBD is arguably devoid of personality and character. This is partly because it does not bear the physical marks of making. As Kepes (1994, p.187) notes, “each tool and each material has its own idiom of movement”. These signs have no brush marks or discrepancies, there are no mistakes, they are perfect, but equally they are soulless. Orlebeke (2006, p.57) reminds us that such seamless, standardised productions can lack a sense of authenticity and integrity. He suggests that it is the authenticity of handmade objects that makes them valuable. “It is their humanness that shines through, and this is the thing we so desperately crave. Handmade objects are ultimately about direct and meaningful communication. It is the connection between people that we seek as designers, and it is through the use of our hands that we can make our work felt.”
Otara high street
Looking at these signs I question how we display business signage and to whom is it directed. For instance, I wonder, would the owner of an expensive new Mercedes Benz trust a company that displayed handwritten signage? Conversely, I ask myself, might the local owner of an inexpensive car feel a sense of trust and familiarity when encountering a sign that spoke graphically with a familiar and recognisable dialect.
A typical laundry from South Auckland
Conclusion
The images considered in this chapter form the typographical voice of a community. As a designer I am always looking at textures, images, colours, space, type and examples like these signs give me inspiration. They serve as catalysts for future design. I am reminded of the famous typeface Future Black, which was based on a crude handwritten street sign seen in a poor area of Spain. The designer (Josef Albers) responded to something distinct he encountered in a local dialect. Graphic design seeks to communicate, but I would suggest that designers also need to be able to ‘read’ the communities for whom they design. Typography is much deeper than a consideration of form and convention. When we design for communities, we need to understand the nuances of visual speech with which they communicate. In a world of corporate branding and slick marketing campaigns one has to ask, has design lost its responsiveness? Have we lost the sense of community and are we on a slippery slope towards a world devoid of individuality.
The images considered in this chapter form the typographical voice of a community. As a designer I am always looking at textures, images, colours, space, type and examples like these signs give me inspiration. They serve as catalysts for future design. I am reminded of the famous typeface Future Black, which was based on a crude handwritten street sign seen in a poor area of Spain. The designer (Josef Albers) responded to something distinct he encountered in a local dialect. Graphic design seeks to communicate, but I would suggest that designers also need to be able to ‘read’ the communities for whom they design. Typography is much deeper than a consideration of form and convention. When we design for communities, we need to understand the nuances of visual speech with which they communicate. In a world of corporate branding and slick marketing campaigns one has to ask, has design lost its responsiveness? Have we lost the sense of community and are we on a slippery slope towards a world devoid of individuality.
The entrance to a mechanical garage. No name just this hand painted street number
In Otara these examples of business signage are fast becoming a thing of the past. They may be seen as a bastion of individualism; ‘voices’ that speak with community humour and pragmatism. Strangely, these signs, despite the disparagement they might experience at the hands of certain designers, are to me more effective. I remember them. They tell me about the rich, distinctive community they serve… and they are uniquely beautiful.
‘Happy are those who see beauty in modest spots where others see nothing. Everything is beautiful, the whole secret lies in knowing how to interpret it’
Camille Pissaro (1893)
Camille Pissaro (1893)
