Vegetarians, avert your gaze. Fewer things go better together than meat and whatever is next to meat. In the open dining rooms of many a Texas meatery, that companion to meat just so happens to be typography (printed, painted, scrawled, drawn, lettered, what have you). The signs of these establishments are honest and direct. In all shapes, styles, and formats (and sometimes obscured by decades of smokey oak) they unequivocally point the way to meat. What follows is a pictorial survey of the meat and corresponding typography & lettering of some of the finest BBQ I have ever known.

A quick preview of lettering and vernacular typography in Montréal. Because of Quebec’s strict language laws, French is the dominant language on street signs and in commercial signage. Multi-lingual signs in Israel (here & here) and Ireland (here).

An assorted sample of vernacular typography and lettering found recently in New Orleans. There’s no single dominant style of lettering, but rather a mix of everything (hand painted, hand scrawled, fading ghost ads–many layered over even older ghost signs, tile, neon, and about any other type of signage imaginable). The connecting thread seems to be the omnipresent plastic beaded necklaces twisted and dangling over most signs. Also, beignets. Follow @VernacularType

A few shots from a recent trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was interesting to see how the buildings and typography had changed since a visit in 2007. Also, mofongo.

A Philadelphia section has just been added to the main archive (HERE), with photos primarily taken along the Market-Frankford SEPTA line in West Philadelphia. The area is predominantly residential, though the population has dwindled in recent years. There are small commercial clusters around the El stops, but lots are mostly vacant and storefronts boarded up and decaying. Work from public art initiatives like the incredible Mural Arts Program pop up all over the city and brighten blighted areas and transform public space. Here’s a quick preview: Here’s an interesting interactive city map that gives a larger view of the vacancies in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods (link).