Sign o’ the times

Photo by Kate Hutchinson

At right are letters from the once iconic Warshaw’s sign that loomed above the Main for decades. They are now featured as part of The Logo Cities Show: Old Signs and New Artworks. The exhibition aims to take a look at creative works focusing on signage and lettering, alongside examples of old and new signs from around Montreal. The show is on until May 10 in the VAV Gallery, 1395 René Lévesque W.

The Quebec premiere of Helvetica will take place Saturday, May 5, in H-110 as part of the continuing Logo Cities: An International Symposium on Signage, Branding, and Lettering in Public Space. Introduced amidst a wave of popularity of Swiss design in 1957, the Helvetica font quickly appeared in corporate logos, signage for transportation systems, fine art prints, and myriad other uses worldwide. The film Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day. Admission by donation.

For more on the conference, please go to www.logocities.org/ or check out the visual blog at news.concordia.ca/