Sunday, May 17, 2009

Pike Place Market in Seattle




















































Here are some photos from the environs of the Pike Place Market in Seattle, where my eyes were drawn to typefaces, and senses drawn to the bustle of early morning, with coffee and croissant at Le Panier. We're back home now, but the memory of that perfect coffee lingers.

I like the Piroshky sign for the art and the unusual use of punctuation. The Starbucks logo is from the original store, back when the mermaid was a bit more...complicated. There's a nice version of the mermaid on an umbrella at a more recent Starbucks. It's an example of how to use a logo as art, but you have to have a really good logo.

Left Bank Books – a classic bookshop, of a dying breed, going the way of the typewriter. But wait: it is collectively owned by its workers, and does have a website (and there are other, unrelated, Left Bank Books stores in other parts of the country).

The Sanitary Public Market was interesting, too, right across from a Showgirls porn shop. That's an observant mannequin on one of the balconies, checking out the patrons of Showgirls.

I like the simple Lois Lenski-style font on the Farmers Market sign, which Jack captured at night. The Meet the Producer sign is also wonderful, referring not to the Market Theater (the sign at the entrance to the subway) but to the theater of produce coming out of those early morning trucks.

1 comment:

Joyce said...

Thank you for the photo trip of Seattle, Elenabella! The next best thing to being there ~