Imaginary Alphabets

A series of alphabets created to fill in the blanks of found lettering in Melbourne, Australia.

Imaginary Alphabets no. 1

Walking by Punch Lane in Melbourne one day this winter, I spotted a sign for a restaurant I’d never seen before. It was hand painted, with confident but elegant strokes; boldly upright, white on black.

As a script it looked so perfectly united—as if you’d never question the shapes of the letters or how they came to be standing next to one another. And I suppose this is what you want from a piece of lettering: for your word to look like one piece, as opposed to letters that just happen to be standing next to each other, like strangers in the bank queue.

When the word is a name, it’s even more important to maintain solidarity. After all, you wouldn’t want someone to look at your name and think, “jeez, wouldn’t his name be so lovely if not for that unfortunate ‘s’ hanging out at the end.”

I do realize of course that most people don’t have this kind of internal dialogue. But since I do, it was natural that once I passed this sign, I continued to think about it for the next several days.

So I went back and I took photographs of it, perching precariously atop a very narrow cement bollard. I wanted to know what the rest of the characters would look like if a whole alphabet had been made from this lovely script. This is what I came up with.

 Imaginary Alphabets
 
 
 
The booklet folds out to this A3 sized poster.

Imaginary Alphabets no. 2 was actually the third in the series (I put out a small run of one entitled Imaginary Alphabets 1 1/2, which was not a full alphabet.)

This alphabet was based on some found sheet music.
 

The great response to the Imaginary Alphabets series prompted a solo show in Melbourne last June at The Landing gallery, entitled "Direct to Public". Here are some photos of the works that were created, all based on found signage in the industrial suburb of Brunswick.

A vast amount of work was created: laser cut signs based on generic shop signage; hand-painted letters on tiles to show a delapidated tile store; enamel numbers on wood; pencil on metal; spray painted stencils on planks; and enamel letters on plexiglass; and my personal favorite, screenprinted letters on fabric. I also created an alphabet, entitled "Wholesale", that referenced some local brush script I noticed.

Throughout the room I mounted small reference images that pointed back to the original source of the letter making and word play.

This photo shows "Signorino" tile company's name, with "g-o-n-e" purposely falling off the wall.
Laser cut and painted "Butcher" and "Tailor" signs.
 
The letterforms that created "Baker" "Middle" and "East" were all taken from a sign for a company, "Middle East Bakery". All of these were hand painted on wood or plexiglass.
The screenprinted letters are an embellished anagram of the tailor's business name, Nino Cuni, and spell "Cut Inches". Unfortunately I need to rummage up another photo so you can see the rest!
I screenprinted the letters in white on black fabric and draped it stoicly across a dressmaker's dummy.
Here are all the letters.
This references Chemist Warehouse's crates that say "Stop Paying Too Much" in bright yellow stencil. I made stencils with the alphabet I created, "Wholesale" to reference this.
Some of the signage I saw had traits I just couldn't ignore, so I made small, quick pieces that were just postcard-sized enamel on wood.
 
The flyer for "Wholesale," the Imaginary Alphabet. I like what Daniel Neville has to say about it on his review of the show.
Finally, here are two posters I made that were for sale at the gallery. They didn't get much response, which actually surprised me. Let me know if you have any thoughts!