Call it what you will — folk, naif, vernacular or indigenous artwork is not derived from or beholden to the popular styles, manners and movements dominating the art and design worlds. That is, unless a particular folk art or craft has itself been catapulted into a style, manner or movement by a collector or speculator. Given that contemporary art and design dealers and collectors hunger voraciously for new, novel and extraordinary odditities, picking through stacks of untutored art and finding feral geniuses has long been an ever-self-replenishing resource. Think of Grandma Moses and Howard Finster; each curiously influenced tutored art and design in distinct ways. Before DIY became a fashion, do-it-yourself advertising signs, the kinds seen in small towns, shacks and shanties around the world, were artlessly utilitarian, although some are nonetheless guilelessly artful. Today, these hand-scrawled untutored signs are recurringly emulated.
Makeshift signs painted, drawn and nailed up are what John Baeder, the foremost painter, photographer and documentary collector of vernacular subjects, labels “music of the street.” They may indeed be unsophisticated, but in the current digital age, primitive style has become a deliberate rejection of slick, formatted professionalism. In fact, what is sometimes called “neoprimitive” is really a professional anti-design style.
Crude announcements and messages scrawled are humble expressions, sometimes designed to closely approximate professional typography. Others are made simply to convey a distinct message. Some are virtually impeccable, like the supergraphic “GIGANTIC CHAIR SALE,” while others are crudely drawn and sloppily misspelled, like the ad hoc “GOD BLESS U,” which has a “U” because “YOU” didn’t fit. But most are made to convey clear information as boldly as possible in a lettering manner almost everybody can understand.
Some examples are noteworthy for both their ingenuity and serendipity. The breaking of the word “hard” and the undifferentiated word spacing between “r” and “D” and “ON” in “PUSH HARD ON DOOR” may be purposeful or accidentally. It ultimately doesn’t matter—it’s hard to decipher but shows a happy disregard for the rules of writing. “SHOE SHINE 15¢” is a beautiful folk artifact, and the gray outline and white inline letters reveal a basic understanding of typographic display techniques. “SWEET CHERRIES” shows a keen eye for display. The red on yellow is a grabber, while the unadorned centered letters and the tasty cherries nestled into the empty space speak directly to two of the basic taste sensations (sweetness and bitterness).
Even these impromtu signs are not entirely without innate ambition. The anonymous person who designed “DRIVE IN AND AROUND” is not without a modicum of awareness of the way letters, when nuanced, can evoke personality.
But there are also signs that don’t seem to have been done with any gusto whatsoever.
Ultimately, it is doubtful that the majority of makeshift sign makers have design on the brain, but in their dispassionate way these signs exist in an alternative design universe.