Sign Week Vienna
Festival for Urban Typography

Cities derive a large part of their identity from the individual signage on their façades and other areas of urban space. This is achieved on the one hand through urban ‘management’, i.e. public guidance systems, transport companies and other institutions, and on the other hand through countless shop fronts and shop signage. Ultimately, they define the ‘flair’ of a city and determine whether a particular district is perceived as ‘sleepy,’ ‘cheap,’ “romantic” or ‘straight.’
 

Vienna has a long tradition of individual city signage and was once considered a metropolis of sign painting.

Sign Week Vienna, which I organised and curated, was intended to commemorate this heritage and stimulate discourse on the ongoing changes in the city and their impact on Vienna’s characteristic (typo)graphic coding.

Exhibition

‘135 years of Samuel sign painting’ in Europe’s only sign painting museum.

Exhibition

Photoexhibition ‘Signs from different worlds’ Steve Spiegel (US) und Achim Gauger (AT).

Intervention in public space

Neon objects from the D. Sprengnagel collection in the shop windows of the Hämmerle fashion store on Vienna’s busiest shopping street.

Handlettering Workshop

with Mike Meyer, hosted by Typejockeys.

European film premiere

Neon. Feel The Glow. Australia, 2016

Walks

Geschäfte mit Geschichte (Shops with history): Martin Frey and Philipp Graf, Wien Museum Tours: Tom Koch

Award ceremony for ‘Vienna’s most beautiful shops’

As part of Sign Week Vienna, we organised a competition for store owners and designers in collaboration with the Vienna Trade Representation.

Photos: Martin Frey und Philipp Graf 

In the Press: Kurier ☛ „Sign Week“: Auch Buchstaben haben eine Seele Die Presse ☛ Sign Week Vienna: Die verschwundenen Schriftzüge Der Standard ☛ Festival feiert Wiener Stadtschrift und die Kunst der Schildermalerei ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) ☛ Wiens schönste Geschäftsschilder prämiert ORF ☛ Sign Week feiert fast verlorene Schilderkunst Ö1 Leporello ☛ Die Reihe „Geschäfte mit Geschichte – Waren aller Art in Wien“ medianet ☛ Zielgenaue Werbung bei Tag und Nacht Fonts in use ☛ Typewalk 1915 Page ☛ Läden, Schriftzüge, Reklame: Die erste Sign Week Vienna Monocle Magazine Radio ☛ Alexei Korolyov visits a festival dedicated to the art of sign-making in the Austrian capital.