Vernacular typography in visual communication design: The case of Sakarya

In times when printing technology was not common, the daily communication needs of the cities were made by the craftsmen of the period with hand work. These craftsmen are those who have not received any professional training and acquired their skills with master-apprentice teaching. The idiosyncratic style of the craftsmen turned into style of the regions over time, and provided a rich diversity of letterings in each region of the city, processed with different styles. Visual culture products made by people without formal professional training and generally remain anonymous can be defined as vernacular, which means Latin native. In this respect, these products which are generally made by craftsmen who do not sign their products and contribute to the visual culture of the region, although they are long-lasting as materials, the preference of more eye-catching products such as laser cutting, stickers and illuminated signs emerging with the development of printing technology, is gradually disappearing due to the fact that these products are not saved and the urban transformation. The vernacular samples, which are actively used in the daily life of the city, constitute the typographic texture of the region and also a part of its visual culture. The main purpose of this study is to reveal the products of hand lettering dating back to the 1950's which on the streets of the city, to discover the craftsmen performing the products and to gather all these findings publicly on a web page called the Letters of Sakarya (sakaryaninharfleri.com). In this study, a case study from qualitative research patterns was used and field research was carried out. The findings obtained during the field research in the streets of Sakarya were photographed at their location, their location was recorded and the information such as the date of production and the crasftsman of the product were obtained. These informations is presented on the interactive map on the Letters of Sakarya web page, and visitors are given the the opportunity to examine the products based on location. Even if the products disappear after a while, a public archive has been created which can be seen at which location which product is located even after many years on the created web page. The information obtained through the field research, the biographies of the craftsmen, the video interviews made with the surviving craftsmen, the font preferences of the craftsmen obtained by matching the font algorithms contain daha that will contribute to the visual cummunication and design history of the city and the designed web page is a visual archive that will be presented as an open source for years.