Hand Painted Typography (Oaxaca)

Oaxaca, Mexico. The tradition of hand painted typography continues, to some extent. The chisel and script calligraphic tradition, appears in street art with fresh energy.

The more humble DIY practice of hand painted signage is everywhere in Oaxaca. Here the artist decided to move the whole thing down.

On corrugated doors and roll up gates the letters are spaced to "undulate", so they will appear flat from a straight on view. The artist also compensates for curved surfaces, such as roll up doors.

Fonts are freely interpreted or invented in the process of painting words to fit the space.

With the use of vertical doorways and windows, all official (stacked) typography rules disappear.

Sadly, maybe because hand painted letters and logos are hard to paint around (?) this humanist hand painted tradition is being replaced everywhere by ugly generic vinyl banners, like this, with heavily outlined caps.