Billboard of the Week

Words on Walls

Horizontals and Verticals

Auckland

May 2010, Ajr

Words in the City

I'm a word hunter - always on the look out for everyday words in unusual or unexpected places, juxtaposed with surprising surroundings. So I was a little delighted when I fell upon this row of Wellington buses and the word GO last week - like wise the billboard, larger than life on Lambton Quay. I am endlessly intrigued by the vastly different situations that people find visually stimulating - my thrills not necessarily anyone elses's. And why is that? -That's what I want to know. Why do I respond so strongly to words (other than for the fact that I'm a writer), why cranes, why trees, why the spaces between architecture? And if I knew, would it detract a little from the mystery and the unexpectedness of it all? [Perhaps I should have called this post 'A Morning for Thinking.']

Bring Back Life

I've made no secret of the fact that I love words and signs but sometimes, in certain contexts, they're a mystery to me. I photographed this phrase through the window of a now-empty fashion store. I have no idea of its relevance but I liked the sense of mystery in that - and the way the o0ld building across the street is reflected in the image. There's just something about all that visual layering in a city that I adore.

More From the Word Files

Layers - Stories - Suggestion - Histories - Age

Tucked between Typography

Writ Large & Bold

Words on Walkabout

I am a word collector. As a writer by profession they are ‘the tools of my trade’ of course, but words are SO much more than that to me. It’s about the typography, the shapes and shadows, the forms. It’s about the colour – the same word written in red, blue or green suggests very different things; it’s about the location – a common word transported out of its usual context draws me up short - who put it there, why, what were they intending for me to take from it. And I love a quirky unexpected partnership of words. I get inspiration from them all.

I adore signs. They potentially contain a wealth of humour and an insight into a culture; and billboards for their ability to take words on a gargantuan journey. And then there are the old signs, the old typography – no longer fashionable yet still clinging to the timber and brick facades of the older parts of towns and cities. They tell another whole set of stories with their curly, worn letters – intimate tales of old-fashioned businesses like shoemakers, bookbinders, tailors: good gutsy trades that no longer hold the sway they once had (more’s the pity). The peeling paint, the fading letters, all suggestive of the inherent layers of time and history stacked up between the ‘ms’ and ‘es’ and ‘ys.’

All these things become graphic souvenirs for me. I take photographs, I note down words, phrases, unexpected couplings, I take rubbings, I admire, I gather, I hoard. I have books filled with words. I have handmade books dedicated to ‘word play’ – little typography collages that trigger something deep within my creative processes. Other books are dedicated to ‘words for short stories’, to the fiction-writing processes that for me, often require a very visual starting point and a sustained ‘visual gorging’ to bring an idea to life. That ‘visual research’ is absolutely intrinsic to my creative processes.

And since I’m giving away all my collecting/hoarding secrets, I may as well confess to also collecting old type. Wooden type blocks just DO something to me. I can’t go past them. One of the best birthday presents anyone ever gave me, was a little handmade box with a lid covered in Japanese paper machine-stitched with the letter A (for Adrienne) and inside the box? A collection of wooden A’s. (Thanks Marianne!). I have wooden type ‘prancing’ all around my house – over walls, on mantelpieces, on sideboards. I have old type cases that have been transformed into miniature display cases. And I have a whole set of old lead type – never quite as pretty – which sits quietly in my bedroom corner – chiefly because I can’t lift the box without all the letters spilling out. So there it sits, in the shadows under the old Singer sewing machine that acts as a bedside table, weaving its own silent stories.

Suffice to say, I am surrounded by words and the products they make, advertise and direct – books, signs, type, posters, bookmarks, product boxes, cards, photographs - you name, I’ve probably got it. It goes without saying that this makes for an unusual domestic interior but I’m happy with that. I may have written extensively about expensive contemporary design and architecture but I have no yearnings to live in a glitzy, soulless box that says nothing about its owners and everything about the architect who created it – dwellings where everything is perfect and nothing is out of place. I’m much happier with floor-to-ceiling visual stimuli, in a place of visual chaos in fact, where my eyes can spontaneously come to rest on a giant word roaming across the top of a door frame, or on a quirky shop sign that is so out of place in my kitchen as to be comical. For me, inspiration can come from anywhere; everything communicates; words sing!

Words, Words, Words

Christchurch. September 2009. Ajr

Blax Espresso Bar on Montreal Street here in Christchurch has long been a favourite coffee spot of mine - well, until my favourite barista, Darryl went walkabout. Sadly it's never been quite the same since he left. However, I called in last week and found the winds of change have blown through again. Much of the adjacent deli has gone - or at least been shifted into the back corner - and a new seating area with mirrored walls, snappy red seats and a blackboard filled with words have arrived. I like words. I make no secret of that passion. And not just because I'm a writer by profession and intrigued by the expressive power of words; it's also about the actual visual beauty of words - the typography, the shapes, the curvatures and of course, the spaces between - those rich breeding grounds of allusion and thought. By chance, the team at Blax have topped this wordy expanse with another of my favourite things - cheese boxes, more than that even, cheese boxes covered in words! The cafe itself may not have quite the zing and atmosphere it used to have but I will return - if only to sit and gaze at this wordy wall and allow my thoughts and memories to bubble up between the chalked-out list.

More Britomart Boards

Britomart, Auckland. April 2009 Ajr

I find something unexpectedly fascinating - poetic almost - about the juxtaposition of all these lovely 'soft' words with the brutality of a construction site at Auckland's Britomart development. Love it love it love it and took Waaaay mote photographs than I should probably confess to. There's a few I featured a few days ago below...if you scroll down a wee way. Clever graphics.

Words for Winter

COLDicewetdarknesssnowblizzardwindrainsleetsnowFOG coldCHILLSFIRESshiveringhail

Words From the Outback

PASSIONharshnesscolourremotebrownARIDHOTexpansivevastgoldenDESERTEDRUSTYuntamedmagnificentHUGErawWILDNATURALPIONEERSpassionyellowmagnifientuntamedwilddustoutpostssurvivalstockopalsbondslarrikinsAUSSIEShomesteadsnaturalbeautysunsetsdirtheatsnakesshearershistorySURVIVAL

Words For Autumn

Mellowgolden russetleavessmokechills fruitrichnessredyellowsienna fullnessripefruitseedspodsmushroomscalmperfectstillnessdampgoldenbrownpinklemonblackberry

Who Knew?

• Timbromania - an abnormal interest in postage stamps
• Klazomania - compulsive shouting
• Pogonophobia - a morbid fear of beards

Please Ban.....

The over-worked words and phrases I hate:

• Clean lines - thashed to death in the architectural sense. Please explain what you mean fully - if you can.
• Creatives - as used by the PR and advertising industry to mean 'creative people' - I presume. Slightly self-indulgent not to mention grammatically incorrect.
• Indoor-outdoor flow - if I hear it one more time I'll scream!
• Luxury - inappropriately used in the New Zealand accommodation sector to the point of embarassment. There are probably no more than a dozen true luxury properties in NZ that would rate on an international scale.
• You're so lucky - It's generally about hard work not luck!
• Chur, Tru Bro - NZ slang that annoys the hell out of me. If you're going to speak English do it properly.

Words in the Wild

Sometimes words escape the page and gallop off into the wild, attaching themselves to a grander a canvas - a building, a wall, a billboard - and they take on a new identity. I like that. I like the way they expand, even small words; how they take on a new power and confidence, a more statuesque form and how their meanings can bloat out with broader suggestions. Sometimes, given their location, they become comedians and masters of the obvious: the word BENT on an Adelaide city building - one of numerous references to the word 'bent' I saw that day; the word JETTY on Adelaide's Fleurieu Peninsular on a blue building butting up to the blue ocean - one endless vista of gorgeous blue; and the word LIFEBUOY on...well....a lifebuoy shed (I presume) at Port Lyttelton, over the hills from Christchurch.

Pet Words

PleasurejourneyKISSliveEloquentREDdreamMomentsopulencepagesquestionZEN goldexoticTEMPLEtattooLustthinkultimatePassionvelvetvoyageWINabundance ADVENTUREgoldlooklistenlearnGREENLOVEinspirationimagineINDULGE woodideasimpulseLUSTmemoriesopportunityobsessionPLEASUREpinkREFLECTIONS seduceSECRETTHINKunexpecteduncoveredVISIONvarietyWHITEYES wildZestsucculentevocativeattitudebookbambooBLACK