The Signs on the Streets: A Survey of the Placement, Choice, and Style of Urban Letterforms

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the placement, choice, and style of letterforms and how they permeate a city and how this reflects the identity of the city. In general, it introduces various applied techniques in reading the visual environment in such domains as psychology, geography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, design, architecture, and urban studies in order to read the urban environment with the help of perception theories. The study demonstrates the importance of street level research as a method for gaining a far deeper understanding of the nature of specific urban areas. In doing so we must consider the methodology of photography protocol, and the application of taxonomy to record, and analyse the historical, social, cultural and commercial development through an analysis of lettering and signs on buildings.