I love this project!
In India, there are signs everywhere that are painted by hand in original, custom designed fonts that are the pride of street painters. Their skill, this form of street art and the amazing fonts and colorful style that is so utterly Indian, is being threatened by the advent of desktop publishing.
The project founder, Hanif Kureishi, wanted to be a street painter himself when he was a child and developed this special project to digitize and preserve the work of these skilled artists.
This video is gives an insightful look at how the old and the new is clashing in India. Kureishi’s project is the perfect example of how technology and folk art can collaborate to preserve art forms and become a platform of economic survival. A simple yet amazingly thoughtful project that really relies on the collective participation of the original creator of the art, creative technocrats and lovers of fonts and indeed the end consumers themselves.
Bravo to Hanif, all the street painters and all those spreading the word about this project and helping to collect the works of different artists! Read all about it at www.handpaintedtype.com.
