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India’s city-streets are a shock of colourful signs and letters. The rich diversity of India’s regional languages and their scripts, and the absence of ready-to-use typefaces available in these languages, mean that many Indian businesses still rely on sign-painters and hand-letterers for their signages. In fact, before computer graphics and machine-printed flex signs and posters became widely available in India in the late-90s, sign-painting and hand-lettering was such a flourishing profession that many Indian master painters like M.F. Hussain, Allah Buksh, and G.R. Santosh began their career as signboard painters and poster makers. Despite their near-ubiquitous presence in our cities and towns, however, there has not been any significant work on documenting the homegrown design language and visual culture of the hand-painted street graphics, letters, and signages of Indian cities.
That is — until now.
Pooja Saxena — an award-winning typeface designer, lettering artist, and typographer — is slowly changing that, one letter at a time. For over a decade, Saxena has been photographing different typefaces and letterforms scattered around India’s cities and towns, on signboards and street signs, meticulously mapping their locations and documenting stories about the cultural and historical background of each signage she comes across. Her project ‘India Street Lettering’ is the result of this relentless documentary practice, acting as a catalyst for both her research and design work. The latest volumes of her India Street Lettering zines celebrate the signs and letters of old movie theatres from three iconic Indian cities: Lucknow, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
Although closely related to graffiti and calligraphy, hand-made signage and letterforms have not historically enjoyed the same attention and adoration as those art forms. They should.
Like architecture, street lettering is a window into how a city or neighbourhood has changed and evolved over time. Both pervasive and invisible like the air we breathe, street signs and letters form the very face of our cities — appearing as road signs, place names, billboards, and signages over shops and public buildings. They are threads of the very social fabric that hold our cities and communities together and contribute to our collective experience of a city.
Pause here. Think back. Don’t you just love the red and white ‘बेस्ट’ (BEST) logotype every time you step out into the streets of Mumbai?
