Stuart de Rozario: Hello Thomas it’s a pleasure to be involved and thanks for asking us to participate. I am a type designer from London and have been at Fontsmtih for 6 years now (time flies). I’ve been working in the industry for 20 years this year.

Pedro Arilla: Hi, Thomas. It’s really nice to talk to you, thanks for having us! Well, I am a type designer and typographer from Spain proudly working at Fontsmith in London. I have been involved in type design since 2010 and I joined this team last year.

TJ: It’s great to have such experienced designers here on TypeThursday. Could you share what is ghost typography?

What is Ghost Typography?

SR+PA: It’s an interesting concept: it refers to fading signage from previous times and ages. The beauty of it is that they are everywhere and they tell stories. We think it’s crucial to preserve these ghost signs because they are visual history and show how life once was.

TJ: Fontsmith is located in London, is it fair to say fading signage can be found in particular neighborhoods? Could you provide a specific example?

SR+PA: It’s difficult to pinpoint a specific place because it’s everywhere: abandoned buildings, shops, old street signs, and so on. To be honest, for us as type designers, we are lucky to be in London where the street type is vast. For example, for the Lost & Foundry project we focused our attention on Soho — a well known district in central London with a rich history.

TJ: Tell me more about the Lost & Foundry project. I take it’s a project to preserve the ghost typography of Soho?

The Lost & Foundry Project

SR+PA: Actually, it wasn’t only about restoring ghost typography. Lost & Foundry is more than that and the key aspect was to raise awareness and money for a charity: The House of St Barnabas. It is a social enterprise that aims to break the cycle of homelessness through its Employment Academy, a programme that works with people who have been affected by homelessness and supports them into lasting work. It does this by operating as a member’s club, with all profits from the club going to the Employment Academy.

We got this idea of breaking the cycle of homelessness also for letters! So we collaborated with M&C Saatchi, and Simon Warden from Line, Form & Color to bring this idea to life. As we mentioned before, Soho has a rich history visually and we came across a whole host of beautiful lost lettering. It was actually difficult to pick only seven examples. Once we decided on them, we started the process of recovering the flavour of the original signs and designing missing characters.

TJ: Could you share your process in converting the source material into the final font designs? You already indicated not all the characters were represented in your source material.