Now available in the UK and Europe!
by Pooja Saxena
"...every spread glows... Pooja’s incandescent compendium is a required purchase for anyone interested in typography, graphic design, and/or urban space." —Robin Sloan
India’s cityscapes are a typography lover’s paradise. Take a short walk in any urban neighbourhood and you’ll find signboards in a riot of languages, styles, materials, and colours, spanning decades of design history. So far, this enviable living typographic archive has survived on the fringes. And as digital printing technologies become more popular, we risk losing its handmade, creative essence. That’s where this book comes in.
208 Pages. Hardcover
8 x 8 inches, 800g
ISBN: 978-93-80636-97-9
INDIA STREET LETTERING is a 200-page hardcover full-colour book by Pooja Saxena showcasing striking public lettering from across the country—in paint, in relief, in mosaic, in neon, in wood, you name it. Spanning over a dozen cities and scripts, this book is a visual treat!
Photographs of signs are complemented by essays and interviews that locate them within the broad sweep of language, culture, and typography. Pooja breaks down peculiarities of local scripts, analyses sign painting styles, and shines a light on visual idiosyncrasies that define street lettering in different Indian cities. She has also created guide maps for the book, which will inspire you to go type-spotting next time you visit one of the featured neighbourhoods.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pooja Saxena is an award-winning typeface designer, lettering artist and typographer from India. Through her practice Matra Type, she focuses on designing for Indic scripts, and studying the country’s emerging typographic visual languages.
For over a decade, Pooja has been photographing, geo-tagging, and annotating public lettering to build India Street Lettering, a vast online archive that celebrates the linguistic diversity, historical curiosities, and artistic expression that thrive in the country’s urban spaces. She also guides design enthusiasts on type walks through New Delhi and Bangalore, leads workshops and exhibitions, and publishes zines that bring together stories and photographs from her documentation. Her years-long experience and work on this project is the backbone of INDIA STREET LETTERING, the book!
Also available as an eBook
This book was funded by the Kickstarter campaign for India Street Lettering