Letters on America

Edward Fella

I just love this book I got out from the Library.



From the foreword 'Off The Road' by Lewis Blackwell;

"These 1,100 or so images are less than a third of the collection amassed by Fella since he first started this series of polaroids in 1987. The project is capturing vernacular lettering detail in this way began on a study trip to San Francisco in the spring of that year."

Of the lettering & signs... "The characters can be found on any surface, as distractions or directions, decoration or marker. They are in wood, metal, paint, sticky-back plastic, etched, behind glass, behind bars, torn and layered. They come alone or clustered together, isolated or juxtaposed, fresh or faded, direct or distorted; from in-your-face dayglo to subtle tones that are obscured, reflected, as shadow, as drop shadow, or even as a sunburnt memory of a lost message."










A book like this is so useful when studying typography. Its nice to draw inspiration from the things around us, and looking at your favourite designer's work, but this is effectively just an typographic image database of anonymous signs & type from a place so foreign.

A fine example of using vernacular photography as inspiration for design work was brought to my attention when looking at this book;


An image from 'Letters on America' - A hand written menu in a chinese takeaway;




Poster designed by Roel Wouters, who was inspired by the same kind of thing;




I find particularly interesting the pages in which Fella interprets what he sees into his own designs and illustrations.

I think this book will be useful for this project, seeing just how much of the photos are of hand made signage, But also helpful for the photography elective.