Big Letters Light

In may 2010, during the TypoBerlin conference, we put our noses against the window of Buchstabenmuseum at their location in Leipzigstraße near U-bahn Spittelmarkt. Inside there was a wonderland of 3D letters. Unfortunately open only 2 hours, one day a week. Since then the museum has moved their showroom to a shoppingcenter at Alexanderplatz with apparently and obvious success. Apparently, because the immediate attraction to all these letters is followed by a lot of publicity on the internet - as well as pictures, which you can make sure of on Flickr for instance. And the success is obvious, since the museum now is open 2 hours, 3 days a week, in a location conveniently close to where people (tourists) already are. Although, first floor in a mart ...? – A museum in a mart may sound strange, but this is Berlin, says Barbara Dechant, one of the managers. And after all, considering where the letters come from, they fit perfectly into these commercial premises. The success is also obvious, since almost anyone of the letters is interesting as a design object, not necessarily because it is well formed and crafted. But the museum also manage to put the letters into a context, collected in the orinigal company names and logos, or just in yellow, red or blue rooms.

I started to look out for the 3D letters in Berlin as I had more days to spend there. And what strikes me is what seems to be quite a big amount these kind of facade signs. So with the mind opened after the museum, there is also a live exhibition out in the streets. Not many that are really interesting from a typographic point of view, though still attractive, and some even surprising as for instance the Petrocelli restaurant “set” in FF Justlefthand – I didn’t expect to see Just’s handwriting exploded into 3D.