I was sad to find this sign in the window of a little used bookstore on Berlin-Friedrichshain’s Niederbarnimstraße, where we used to look in regularly. We often found oddities, treasures and gifts there, in recent years priced by the kilo: a volume of Grzimek’s encyclopedia of animals that inspired us to buy the whole set; a beautiful hand-colored […]
Last week, I made my first short film. As you may know, I love taking classes and workshops on new skills, be it drawing animals at the zoo or hand-lettering. So I jumped at the chance to join a free intensive video workshop at the nGbK, focusing on the current exhibition, Tagore’s Post Office.
A voice sings out when you call this old-fashioned paint shop in Berlin-Kreuzberg: “Malerladen!” The full name is actually Frauenkollektiv Malerladen, as it’s run by a collective of down-to-earth, middle-aged women. Coming from a variety of related professions, including carpentry and construction, they believe in renovating old Berlin apartments the old-fashioned way, with high-quality linseed […]
Tomorrow is Martina’s lettering workshop and I’ve been collecting more Berlin lettering to mentally prepare. Above, the window of an after-school activity center in a Neukölln storefront, painted paper letters proclaim “On Fridays, it’s really happening!
Berlin isn’t a bad place to go sign-peeping. Not just at the Museum of Letters, but also right on the city streets, there are signs from East, West, and pre-Wall Berlin, and some lovely new signs as well. I’m designing some script lettering right now, so I’ve been looking at the many script signs around […]
Bookstore windows seem to be catching my eye these days, terraria of print-and-paper creatures. This one, located in San Francisco’s Mission district, is populated only by orange and yellow books. I like the book-fox and book-hedgehog illustrations on the Cabinet anthology. I like its title, Curiosity and Method, too.
Inspired by the unexpected sun this morning, I took an impromptu walk through a neighborhood I didn’t know. Among the cozy, pre-war buildings near Nöldnerplatz in Lichtenberg, I noticed this bookstore window. It was the pleasing array of colorful mushroom and berry field guides that first caught my eye. Then I saw the two paperbacks […]
Little fluted paper trays play a major role in Berlin eating. They support slices of cake in waxed paper bags being transported from bakeries to offices every day, carefully balanced on the palm of the hand, to be eaten with afternoon coffee. Deeper versions hold Currywurst and Pommes rot-weiß.
Imagine taking your kitchen for a road trip. Two small burners, a spice rack, a sink with a bottle each of dish detergent and Club Maté nestled inside, what more would you need for a mobile cooking session? I peeked in this VW van window in Rudolfkiez, Berlin-Friedrichshain, near my studio.
