Community-Sourced Photos of New York City’s Diverse Signage
New York City offers a plethora of photographic opportunity. Massive architecture alongside a vibrant and diverse population makes for plenty of work for photographers of all types. But have you ever thought about the myriad signage and typography that New York has to offer?
Matthew Anderson and Daniel Hunninghake did, and so they created NYCType back in 2007 to highlight it. The site brings together photos of New York City’s signage under once virtual roof.
When NYCType first went live, it was curated by Anderson and friends manually, but the process was time-consuming and labor intensive. The rise of Instagram has allowed them to automate the site, bringing in any picture hashtagged #nyctype and thus making sure the site is always updating.
Speaking with Wired, Anderson explained that he has a passion for typography. There’s a rich visual history of hand-painted signs and displays in NYC, but these unique creations are slowly being replaced by mass-produced corporate signage that he believes has “less soul.”
NYCType is a way to photographically document these unique pieces of New York City’s history before they all disappear.
In the future, Anderson hopes to find a way to integrate higher resolution DSLR imagery, videos and geo-tagging into the website, but there’s no telling when that will happen. To browse through the diverse world of NYC signage, head over to NYCType here and check it out for yourself.
(via Wired via Laughing Squid)
