Goodstuff

Goodstuff was a collaborative project of hand-painted signage for the company’s London office. Several letterers each took a set of words, and all the typography was also intended for use on the company’s new website.

The words painted around the office were MEASUREMENTS, BIGSMALL, DIGITAL, MEDIA & SOME, IDEAS UNLIMITED, SERVICES, DIFFERENT, MEDIA PLANNING & BUYING, CONTENT, GOODSTUFFERS and TWITTER. The photograph below shows MEASUREMENTS painted in tall condensed capitals straight onto the dark floor.

Context

Hand-painted signage is an old trade that has seen a strong revival in British shop fronts, cafés and offices. Painted letters have small irregularities that printed vinyl lacks, and on a wall or floor they read as part of the building rather than as something stuck onto it. Painting straight onto the floor, as in the photograph here, also means the words are encountered on foot, at the scale of the room.

Sharing the alphabet out between several letterers turns a signage job into a small exhibition: each word carries a different hand and a different idea of what a letter can look like, while the shared list of words keeps the whole office consistent. Reusing the same lettering online keeps the building and the website speaking in one voice.

The list of words is itself revealing. Terms like MEDIA PLANNING & BUYING, CONTENT and DIGITAL describe what the company does, while BIGSMALL, IDEAS UNLIMITED and DIFFERENT read more like a statement of attitude, so the walls double as a slightly playful summary of the business.