Logo Cities: Symposium on Signage, Branding, and Lettering in Public Space
Logo Cities: An International Symposium on Signage, Branding, and Lettering in Public Space
May 4-5, 2007
Concordia University, Montréal, Québec
Cities are awash in ‘public lettering’: street signs, newspaper mastheads, road signs, high-rise corporate logos, store/shop/restaurant signs, engravings on buildings and monuments, etc. They are at once branding and promotional devices; names (of buildings); labels; locating devices; material and technological artifacts; pieces of graphic, typographic, and industrial design; architectural heritage; industrial detritus; personal and cultural narratives. They are also intricately linked to the dominant preoccupations of the city: high-rise logos, for example, eloquently describe the commercial, financial, civic, even religious priorities of a particular urban locale – especially at night.
It is all the more surprising, given their sheer ubiquity, that signs have received relatively little coordinated attention – critical, creative, or otherwise. The Logo Cities symposium aims to draw together scholars, designers, artists, and artisans to foster an informed, critical dialogue about signage, branding, and lettering in public space. We invite expressions of interest and proposals for scholarly papers, panels, artworks and screenings that critically and creatively interrogate the intersections of signage, branding and lettering in public space – in any local, regional, national, or international contexts. We are especially interested in historical case studies; design and typographic studies; activist, artistic, and new media interventions; and, critical cultural analyses that offer new and adventurous insights into these phenomena from anywhere in the world. (NB We are less interested in advertising billboards and graffiti, given the substantial attention they have already received.)
Logo Cities will be held on the downtown campus of Concordia University, Montréal, May 4/5 2007. The event will include an art exhibition of creative works focusing on signage and lettering, alongside examples of old and new signs from around the city. The symposium will close with the Québec premiere of Helvetica, a new documentary film exploring the history and significance of this archetypal Modernist typeface which, for half a century, has been a ubiquitous presence in print and on signage in city streets, train stations and airports across the world. This screening of Helvetica will be introduced by the film’s director, Gary Hustwit.
The deadline for formal proposals is February 28, 2007. For more information and continual updates please visit the official symposium website. The website also features work derived from Logo Cities: Montréal, a research/creation project focusing on signage, branding and lettering in the city of Montréal.
