Lettering design for the Le Flaneur bookshop in Amsterdam completed in November 2024.
Background
Le Flaneur is an independent bookshop with used and new books in English, Dutch, Turkish, French, German, and other languages on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. The shop's focus is on literary fiction and non-fiction books in English. It has a shopping window where a selection of books is displayed. When you're standing right in front of the window, it is clear what the shop is selling, but in passing or from across the canal, this may not be clear.
My design is inspired by the handpainted window lettering of the former bookshop of Wichert ten Have on Kalverstraat in Amsterdam that I discovered on a photo from 1930 in the online image database of Amsterdam's City Archive. The original lettering artist is unknown and the photo is copyright free.
Sketches
First I made some sketches of the letters and a couple of mock-ups of the shop window with some variations of the text. Based on this, we agreed I would design the sign in this style.
Design process
Then I made scalable versions of each letter, I aligned the features of the letters B and S and of the letters K, H, and P, I balanced the line weights, and I smoothened the curves. Last I added the colored shadows to make the letters stand out more and give these classically styled letters a fresh look.
