Excerpt: "While the Los Angeles landscape is famous for its cacophany of signage -- in hundreds of languages and styles and within thousands of cultural contexts -- the textual environment of the apparel wholesale district is uniquely bewildering."
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On a Saturday morning, when Santee Alley and its surrounding retail streets are thronged with shoppers, the wholesale streets on the eastern edge of the Fashion District -- only a few blocks away -- are almost deserted. Storefronts are locked and parking is plentiful.
Towne Ave.
In these six or so square blocks east of San Pedro, west of Stanford, south of 10th, and north of Pico, massive wholesale marts dominate the streetscape. Multi-level and multi-hued, these markets are characterized by their rows of small, street-facing tenant showroom stalls, each with their own graphically distinct sign.
San Pedro St.
Come Monday, these shops will open up to retailers looking for product to rebrand and resell -- and the signs will do their best to distinguish each of the hundreds of storefronts from one another.
Still Filling Up, 10th St.
While the Los Angeles landscape is famous for its cacophany of signage -- in hundreds of languages and styles and within thousands of cultural contexts -- the textual environment of the apparel wholesale district is uniquely bewildering. We've long been fascinated by these signs and their often baffling mixes of words, fonts, and cultural references. Viewed together, these "proto brands" are a meditation on meaning in our global consumer culture.
Here are 100 or so of our favorites (click an image to start a slideshow):
Zoompy by Pury
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