Futura. Verdana. Blackletter. Humans. Helvetica. Copperplate.
Futura. Verdana. Blackletter. Humans. Helvetica. Copperplate.
All I see in Berlin are letters.
One ride on the U-Bahn turns into an afternoon of name-that-font on a timely transport of typeface. As I pass by each stop, I recite names of font I just saw. I am like letterpress Arya Stark.
Futura. Verdana. Blackletter. Humans. Helvetica. Copperplate.
There is something meditative about sitting in a yellow subway car, waiting for the doors to open to find an unexpected font long forgotten and preferably with umlauts and eszett.
I do this for a few hours.
I know, I know. You are thinking “Gutenberg, girl. Get it?” while I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that my metro card hasn’t expired. There can’t be more of this. But it keeps going. And there is no logic. San Serif, serif. All caps. Caps on first and the rest lower case. Black on white. White on black. Stencil on tile. Metal on marble.
I run up for a breath of fresh air, some sun shine and a glimpse of the city. Berlin is bright and blue. Construction cranes are looming over most of the city in a slow motion ballet of building. Everything is neue.
Futura. Verdana. Blackletter. Humans. Helvetica. Copperplate.
Dedicated to Brooks and Cary Ocon of Aardvark Letterpress, who will probably never read this.
Want more Berlin U-Bahn type? So do I. Check out UrbanSketcher’s lovely post and Kate Seabrook’s Endbanhof photography series where she documented the entire U-bahn.
