This directional signage on a local parking garage is the best use of neon I’ve ever seen. The lettering is clear enough on its own, but the in-and-out arrows, set perpendicular to the text, bring the signs into the third dimension, making the garage’s entrance and exit completely unmistakable. The enter arrow points in, and the exit arrow points out, yet they just barely avoid being clipped by the garage door when it closes.

Don’t you miss the days when the Postal Service was all about Helvetica? And not in a boring, this-happens-to-be-our-default-font kind of way, but in a cool, cosmopolitan, international, Bauhausian kind of way. They even used all-lowercase before that was cool. Seen today, this type makes me long for the USPS of the past, in the days before Univers and Star Trek-font took over their signage. Heck, I’ll even forgive the completely unnecessary “thru.”

An unexpected use of Gill Sans italic: Instructions on the proper gutting of a fish, found posted on a popular fishing pier. I’m used to seeing this typeface in more modern, jet-set contexts, but I guess it’s equally good at illustrating fishy cross-sections.

Note the incongruity of the two messages being communicated here.

First, there is the explicit message of the words themselves, identifying this establishment as both (A) a laundromat and (B) more specifically, the laundromat being owned and operated by, or named in honor of, Bing Wong.

Second, there is the the message implicit in the lettering: Old, blackletter-style forms normally communicate history, stability, and an established, here-for-many-years-to-come quality. But in this case, the forms are physicalized in faded, brittle plastic that directly negates any truth to that claim. Judged by its letters alone, the place looks like it’s falling apart.

It’s hard to interpret the signmaker’s intent, and this confusion is what makes it interesting. You have to wonder, was this lettering choice deliberate, and if so, what was the intended message? Or, did these red plastic letters just happen to be on sale when Bing Wong was setting up shop?

On top of that, who would associate a Chinese name with a blackletter form that descended from Western Europe? When those letterforms evolved, the two cultures were hardly aware of each other’s existence (not to mention the fact that electricity and indoor plumbing — -essential components of laundromats — -wouldn’t be developed until centuries later).

How po-mo is that?

The hand-welded lettering on this sidewalk access panel captivates me. Not only is it beautiful, but it was done by the hand of an electrician, or a steelworker — -either way, not a professional artist.