Now that she can venture further afield, Genie and I pass this building on our evening walks. Perhaps dusk light is to ogling buildings as beer goggles are to ogling people. But there’s a lot to love about this building at any time of the day. It’s a place where they make a living out of making physical objects, for one. And the place is covered in these excellent signs as well.

American Metal Crafters sign. Enhance it!

“American Metal Crafters • Metal Boxes • First Aid Cab. • Specialties.” Doesn’t matter what you need. They can make it, see? (“And the book itself is but a tissue of signs.”) Ah, yes. There’s so much signification going on in these signs. So much strength, simplicity and value. A semiotician’s dream.

Shipping and receiving. Enhance it!

Hey web designer, that’s not a drop shadow, this… You get the idea. To think of the effort that we collectively put into making things feel this way—textures in visual design, physicality in interface design, pre-worn jeans, mud on the SUV (huh?). Here it is all effortless, functional, un-reflexive. From a point in space and time when such things came naturally. And we are never going back.

So, I trust I’ve won you over. Great effin’ building.

Related posts:

• On the Mattabesset trail with Genie
• Say no to endless war
• Next stop: modernity

They røck so härd.

Related posts:

• Fever Ray

Beloved by me since childhood and finally mortalised on my web site, the iron eagle sculpture at Kirra Hill. It’s good to see the Gold Coast again.

Related posts:

• Sayōnara
• Roo the day
• ‘Time and Tide’ by Ken Worpole and Jason Orton