Creative Lockdown Project: Type Safari in your home

The combinations of type found on street signs reveal a great deal about a city, town or specific area. They reflect the social, economic and historical development of the area and create their own, unique typographic DNA.

For a number of years, I took people on Type Safaris through Dalston in East London. These are guided walks exploring the signage with a photography challenge to create a phrase using letters from Dalston signs, as shown above. We often ended the tour by going for drinks in a quintessentially Dalston-style bar with a chequered lino floor (from its previous life as a furniture shop), a glitter ball and lampshades made from plastic vegetable colanders.

I’ll be inviting you to join me on a virtual Dalston Type Safari, dates to be announced soon. In our lockdown lives, we’re instead finding ourselves navigating our way around the rooms in our homes. This is the inspiration for this week’s Creative Lockdown Challenge.

Creative Lockdown Project: Type Safari in your home

This week’s challenge is to create a typographic composition to reflect your lockdown life at home.

Challenge
1) Think of a phrase, quote, memory or lyric that you associate with this time of self-isolation, ideally between 10 and 25 characters long (including spaces).

2) Write this down on a piece of paper so you can cross out the letters as you find them.

3) Find the individual letters on the packaging, products and logos around your home that make up your phrase (including spaces).

4) Combine your photos so that they spell out your phrase.

Results
Share your finished project on social media with #CreativeLockdownProject. Tag #TypeTasting as I’ll be sharing some of the results.

Join me for a Virtual Dalston Type Safari & sign spotting quiz
What are the secrets hidden in an area’s signage? How do they influence your choices? How does East London compare to your local neighbourhood?
Format: 1-hour Type Safari + 30-minute type pub quiz with Q&A.
Find out more and sign up here.

Please help support the studio
All live events, workshops and talks have been cancelled due to Coronavirus. Virtual events will be announced soon. Meanwhile, you can play a vital role in ensuring that the studio rent is paid by buying me a cup of virtual coffee here. Your help means that I can continue run workshops, research and events again once we’re out the other side, Sarah.