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Today is the start of Clerkenwell Design Week, the UK’s leading independent design festival, in the heart of London. Over 60 showrooms will host presentations, workshops and product launches across a broad variety of design disciplines.
Clerkenwell is also the historically home of London’s type foundries, there was even a street called Type Street, near Caslon’s foundry. At it’s height all of the world’s major typefounders had a presence here, there were even two on my street alone. Fontsmith have a popular typeface named after it and today, Clerkenwell is home to many of London’s design agencies, furniture stores and more architects per square mile than anywhere else on the planet.
Above is one of my favourite designs, a typographic map of the area. “Broadside 5” is a letterpress print by Alan Kitching, master letterpress typographer and printmaker. This map now serves as an historical reminder of the changes in the area, since being printed in 1992 . Neither “Oysters, Crabs and Lobsters” nor “Bric-a-brac”are available any more on Exmouth Market.
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