The Price is Right

The label-maker has been acting up at one of the kiosks I visit.  It tends to over-ink, the roll of sticky labels jams, and the digits don't turn as they're supposed to.  The result has been a remarkable material diversity of price tags, even more varied by the number of people who use this machine -- some including additional zeros, others omitting the decimal or pound sign.

Due to this mechanical dysfunction, many of the newer prices have been handwritten, sometimes directly on the product box.  Still others were printed with the aid of a computer when the kiosk opened.  All of this results in an incredible array of price labels displayed across products and also layered on top each other, showing changes of prices and styles through time.  

For the most part, prices are posted for kiosk employees to limit confusion and fluctuations... an occasional challenge for cash businesses without UPC scanners.  Should the blotchy ink make labels undecipherable, prices are also presented behind the counter on a piece of weathered paper in neat capital letters.  

OpenType

To locate material threads through the neighbourhood, I've been making typologies, meant to highlight not sameness, but difference.  The rectangular "Food & Wine" signs below all jut out from shop fronts at a right angle. They are all made on acrylic panels and encased in metal.  Many glow from the inside.  They announce the shop and its unique identity through font, kerning, leading, and colour. 

 

These "Off Licence" shops sell wine, of course, and often sell food as well.  (A rose by any other name...?)  It's interesting as well that, although many are not open 24 hours, some still read: Off Licence Open.

These open signs aren't all from corner shops, but are also part of the neighbourhood's signage landscape.  Each is composed of coloured flashing LED lights and most share the same no-nonsense all-caps sans-serif font.  Still, each is different from the next.