It starts with a 16 year old Louise Fili trav­el­ing to Italy, step­ping off the plane, and falling in love with a bill­board. That moment marked the start of Fili’s typo­graph­ic obses­sion, and bud­ding career in graph­ic design.

Louise Fili has been col­lect­ing and doc­u­ment­ing the signs of Italy since the late 70s. She’s now released that col­lec­tion in a book titled Grafi­ca Del­la Stra­da, The Signs of Italy. This book will prove invalu­able for the typo­graph­ic anthro­pol­o­gist. It runs the gamut of Ital­ian archi­tec­tur­al sign styles of which Fili has cat­e­go­rized as Clas­si­co (clas­sic), Tradizionale (tra­di­tion­al), and Eclet­ti­co (eclec­tic), fol­lowed by more spe­cif­ic groups of Futur­ista E Fascista (Futurist/Fascist), La Stra­da (street signs and num­bers), La Spi­ag­gia (signs at the sea­side), and Fan­tas­ma (ghost signs).

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R. Cap­pel­li & Car­to­le­ria: Piaz­za Nazario Sauro 14r, Flo­rence | Mer­cerie: Via de’ Ginori 34r, Flo­rence

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Frig­gi­tore No. 34: Via Sant’ Antoni­no 50r, Flo­rence

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Ris­torante G. Ranieri: Via Mario de Fiori 26, Rome

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Ris­torante Con­soli­ni: Via Mar­mora­ta 28, Rome

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Caf­fé Costa­doro: Via Maria Vitor­ria 3, Turin | Par­avia: Via Garibal­di 23, Turin

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Cas­troni Caf­fè: Via Otta­viano 55, Rome

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Rug­geri: Via Dei Guib­bonari 59, Rome

197

Stazione San­ta Maria Novel­la: Piaz­za del­la Stazione 1r, Flo­rence

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Flo­rence

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Cab­o­ta: Viareg­gio | Pri­mav­era: Pietrasan­ta | Bertuc­cel­li: Viareg­gio

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Pas­ti­fi­cio Net­tuno: Bologna

La Ménagère

La Ménagère: Via de’ Ginori 8r, Flo­rence | Valige­ria: Milan (pho­tographed by Ias­mi­na Mar­ti­radon­na) | Mer­let­ti: Bura­no

Grafi­ca Del­la Stra­da, The Signs of Italy
By Louise Fili
Pub­lished by Prince­ton Archi­tec­tur­al Press
9 x 6.5″ / 22.9 x 16.5 cm
Hard­cov­er
264 pp
ISBN 978–61689-269–2
$40 / £25
Pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 2014