African Barbershop Sign
アフリカの理髪店看板 / 1950s– / Style / Signage and Display
The hand-painted signboards of West African barbershops: numbered haircut samples in a grid, flat repeated faces sitting between product catalogue and portraiture.
Grids of haircut samples / Flat repeated faces / Numbers and hand lettering / Enamel on plywood
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Comparing primary sources and canonical works · Extracting principles that transfer to other media
- Type
- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Composition
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Material
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process
- Caution
- Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.
- Further study
- sign painters of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire / the wordplay of haircut names / collecting versus local use