Melbourne is well known as a cultural hub – and it has a plethora of signage to match, going all the way back to the gold rush that established the financial basis of the city. For the typographically inclined, the city is jammed packed with rich and beautiful sites of interest.
1. Flip Possibly one of the most curious large letterforms in Melbourne. Intriguing though it is, nobody really knows what it is actually signing to. So typographic is it that it has many spectators wondering what it says. With some license one can discern that it says FLIP (with the F & P flipped) but what is this signing to? Perhaps it is best left to you, the observer. It brings up the fundamental question of what it is typographic and what is not. The most eloquent, definitive and convincing answer I have ever had on this perplexing topic is from the Dutch design writer Peter Mertens who wrote in Emigre 15 – ‘Letters are legible. If some things are not legible, then they are not letters. Illegible letters do not exist. Illegibility does not exist’ 1. So is this signage illegible? Certainly it can’t be read as a word but it carries with it the formal essence of letterforms without needing to refer to any inherent content. It doesn’t appear to be advertising2 anything and yet its highly polished form easily fits our preconceived notions of ‘high design’ (read as: commissioned design). Put simply, if you can get to it, it’s worth a look (and maybe even a read). | Along the way… Looking left down William Street (next to Flagstaff Station and the Federal Courts) is Helvetica Café – the only café in Melbourne to be named after a typeface. This indicates the entry of typographic language into common usage. Designed by Hassell design and architecture in 2000. | 2. Power Station Chimney (destroyed in 2007) One of the most striking uses of protest typography in Melbourne. Painted on the chimney of the derelict Power Station some years ago, it was quite a physical feat. As the newspapers said of the incident – ‘Police arrested a man yesterday after an anti-logging slogan was painted on the chimney of an old power station in Melbourne’s Lonsdale Street. The man was arrested about 2pm after painting “no jobs on a dead planet”, added to other graffiti on the large chimney. Wilderness Society spokesman Richard Hughes said the graffiti was aimed at highlighting proposed logging in Tasmania’s Tarkine forest, but had not been carried out by Wilderness Society members. “While we don’t condone it, there are a lot of people concerned about the issue of Australia’s largest rainforest being open for logging,” he said. Perhaps the greatest pearl of wisdom came from a police spokeswoman who warned people ‘about the dangers of climbing tall structures’. | 3. Rialto 525 (dismantled in 2007) Some rather large and somewhat corporate Helvetica letters to play with. The Rialto Building was officially opened in October 1986 (the colour scheme of the letters seems to back this date rather well) and has retained an equally appealing status with more-recently completed landmark buildings. The Rialto was recently the scene of the OnOff movement covered in Fancy. | 4. The Graham Being situated above eye-height on one of the major thoroughfares of Melbourne makes this one of Melbourne’s best-kept typographic secrets. Situated above what is now the Melbourne Sports Depot, this equisite peice of three dimensional script was the signage for The Graham Hotel, long since renamed. Built in 1953-4 on the site of about two-thirds of the remnants of the Town Hall Hotel, it looked rather spiffy in its 1960s hayday. Like several city hotels, it was built or renovated for the 1956 Olympic Games – an event which brought much modernity to Melbourne. | 5. The Herald Sun Titling These massive sans serifs have been recently reconstructed and were hoisted up on top of the facade on July 14th, 2006. As the original metal letterforms had been badly weathered by the decades, new letterforms were commissioned to replace them. Since the Herald Building on Flinders Street, was converted to boutique apartments in the late 1990’s, the huge signage overlooking the Yarra River was considered to be an intrinsic part not only of the building but of the Melbourne skyline. So much so that they are protected by the National Trust. But obviously not protected enough – Whilst stored in an outside carpark at the signage works, six of the original nine letters were stolen – nothing odd about that except that the culprits would have needed a crane and a few semi-trailer trucks to move them. The police are currently investigating and are on the lookout for individuals who may have recently acquired these rather conspicuous two and a half metre tall letters. They apparently do regular searches on ebay for these mighty letterforms.
1. Emigré 15 (1990) Pg 4 Legibility (Peter Mertens). The text was originally written for Mijn TYPE#E (1989). 2. In the hope of further understanding the ’signage’ we contacted the Melbourne Central Marketing Department who did not return our calls, so the mystery goes on. Photography: Stephen Banham + Tim Mang