Indian Sign Painting: A Typeface Designer’s Take on the Craft
Since 2013, Pooja Saxena has been documenting Indian street lettering in all its forms. As this culimates in a new book from Blaft Publications, which can be pre-ordered on the dedicated Kickstarter, I invited her to share her insights into the sign painting themes within her work.
India Street Lettering is a 200-page book presenting the documentary photography and detailed research that Pooja has carried out across the country.
It was not long after I began documenting street lettering in India that I became jaded by its singular perception — one that focused solely on sign painting and was outrightly colourful and flamboyant — that had taken hold of public imagination. More so because I could see that there were several non-digital methods and techniques of sign-making popular in the country at different times, and many design idioms flourished.
Of course, ignoring local design traditions for dominant global narratives is bad, but flattening them to a common denominator felt no better. And I couldn’t help but ask, why this identity — was it a vision for Indian street culture that seemed most palatable? My attention shifted, therefore: to ribbon lettering in metal, to experiments in mosaic, to possibilities in wood.
