Hand Painted Signs

The craftsmanship here, when it comes to handmade things is simply remarkable. Although few things are technologically complicated, everything done by hand is done well. This is one reason that it's a shame so many small product developers are relying on bad computer fonts to develop their labels.

Hand painted type and sign painting are just excellent here, and beat the pants off of all the comparable computer generated signs. The city souvenir craft shop street has a number of hand painted signs with letters that are painted like bamboo, or other local references. Filipino culture is very concerned with looking to the west for ideas, and as such, much of the visual culture is a bad copy of somewhere else. Somehow though, when this kitschy vernacular of compounded character types is produced by hand on wood, it takes on a life of its own. In the baranguay of Langogan I watched a guy painting the name on the side of a fishing boat, and it was almost perfect, just by hand with a long brush. If only I could convince them that this simple, small town look is what people come here for.