What shop signs say about city life

One of the joys of living in Barcelona is the amazing shop signage. On top of typographic goodness, these places can point us towards how we make cities more liveable for years to come.

Throughout the city it’s not uncommon to find shop and bar signage from any decade of the last century, sometimes older. This creates a smörgåsbord  of typographic trends and techniques that add variety and colour to the fabric of the city.

In the way a healthy ecosystem supports a variety of species – a healthy city should support a variety of life, and the diversity of shops are a sort of benchmark for that.

There’s a growing recognition of the importance of these places, and the city council has recently created rules to protect both the interior and exterior of historic shops and bars.

But preservation of specific places can only really go so far. So what are the conditions that have allowed these places to exist?

A distinctly un-scientific analysis points to a few factors.

Firstly, these places are old. Often they’ve been supported by clientele who are less inclined to use e-commerce, which in turn suggests a wider age range of people living together in the centre of the city.

Secondly, it points towards preference for local business over other options, with the support for social and community connections that go hand in hand with this.

Lastly, Barcelona is really compact, within the centre most places are walkable. Rather than needing to rely on delivery, this density and mix of commercial/residential makes physical retail an option.

Who knows how many of these places will be around in another 20 years. But while they’re here, their typography can prompt us to think about how we make more cities more liveable for the years to come.