Exploring Hong Kong's Iconic Shop Signs

Ask anyone about the unforgettable things about Hong Kong’s urbanscape, and they will tell you the cinematic/cyberpunk aesthetic created by glamorous skyscrapers and ubiquitous shop signs in all scales and forms adhered to unassuming concrete buildings. The eclectic blend of graphic and verbal elements, and association between them and traditional or foreign culture in shop signs has created the alluring ambience and bears witness to local socio-cultural development and integration. With different regions having their main types of economic activities, shop signs of similar business nature which pop up among buildings have created a sense of place and become a vernacular wayfinding device.

The loud colorful chaos was born out of necessity—because of the limited land supply, narrow streets, post-war homogeneous architecture, shop owners in Hong Kong struggled to get their business noticed. The lax rules of shop signs in the past enabled business owners to create different shop signs to promote and inform pedestrians about their business effectively.

Yet the scene of the signs is fading at an unprecedented rate. With rapid urban renewal and gentrification, e.g. renewal of Lee Tung Street (a street selling printed wedding cards), gentrified shopping malls built in Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui (think high-end shopping malls along Victoria Harbour), and government regulations, old buildings are pulled down, so are shop signs. For instance in 2017, more than 1300 shop signs were taken down. The new landmark architecture becomes the ‹signage› itself, in the sense of a wayfinding device, and the significance of ‹conventional› shop signs somewhat lowers. What once was the defining feature of Hong Kong’s street view now fades.

With the current context in mind, this article aims to offer a close look on how shop signs become the marks of local culture and life by deconstructing the visual, verbal and physical elements, and hopefully sheds light on the future possibilities for the unique urban visual element.

Learn the languages: how shop signs convey messages

Shop signs come in all forms and scales, but some have their distinct visual conventions and medium which won’t be mistaken as signs of other types of businesses. These are pawn shops, massage parlours, exchange shops, medical business, and hourly hotels. Their visual conventions, i.e. symbols and medium, are constructed organically with change of nature of business.

Shop signs are here to promote businesses, so they need to be persuasive enough to make potential customers visit one shop instead of another. Authenticity is a useful way to attract people in terms of delivering trust and sparking curiosity. This section explores how different ways of applying traditional and foreign visual and verbal elements make businesses achieve the goal, and how these reflect the rich background of Hong Kong’s cultural exchange and integration since the colonial period, which defines the city’s vernacular aesthetic and cultural identity.

When it comes to delivering traditional ambience of local business, direct use of Chinese calligraphy (typefaces or custom writing), historic paintings, and ancient symbols is found in shop signs. The tradition of calligraphic shop signs has a long history before the rise of digital typefaces. Different styles e.g. beiwei kaishu and lishu, are applied in different media, depending on the ambience a certain business would like to give. For instance, a Chinese clinic may have its signage in powerful calligraphic strokes to make itself appear trustworthy, while a bakery may choose calligraphy with a spontaneous touch to show friendliness. Lettering is also used in small businesses to display it to pedestrians.

Author

Ayla Pui-yi Leung

In association with: Keith Tam, Assistant Professor and Discipline Leader of Communication Design of School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Project Tutor for the HK Shop Signs study, founder of Information Design Lab, School of design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, now Vice Principal and Deputy Academic Director of Hong Kong Design Institute.

References

Pui-yi Leung, A. (2015), Hong Kong Signage. A study, proposal and reflection, School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, download.

Brian Kwok, Fading of Hong Kong neon lights – The archive of Hong Kong visual culture «霓虹黯色—香港街道視覺文化記錄».

Tam, Keith (2014), «The architecture of communication: the visual language of Hong Kong’s neon signs’», Mobile M+ neonsigns.hk: an interactive online exhibition celebrating Hong Kong’s neon signs, http://www.neonsigns.hk. Hong Kong: M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority.

Buildings Department, Guide on Erection & Maintenance of Advertising Signs, http://www.bd.gov.hk/.

Buildings Department, Guidelines for Identification of Abandoned or Dangerous Signboards, http://www.bd.gov.hk/.

Buildings Department, Projection and clearance of signs, http://www.bd.gov.hk/.

Shelton, B. (2011), «Ch. 7 Emerging volumetric, Ch. 8 Conclusion», The Making of Hong Kong: from vertical to volumetric (pp. 131–171).

Stroud, C.; Mpendukana, S. (2010), «Multilingual signage: a multimodal approach to discourses of
consumption in a South African township», Social Semiotics, http://web.b.ebscohost.com.

Miller, S. R. (2010), «Historic Signs, Commercial Speech, and the Limits of Preservation», Journal
of Land Use & Environmental Law, http://www.law.fsu.edu.

El-Yasin, M. K.; Mahadin, R .S. (1996), «On the Pragmatics of Shop Signs in Jordan», Journal of Pragmatics: An Interdisciplinary Monthly of Language Studies, http://www.sciencedirect.com.

NeonSigns.HK. (2014), Typography of Neon Signs 霓虹的字體, http://www.neonsigns.hk.

Planning Department, (2005), 行人環境規劃研究行政簡要, http://www.pland.gov.hk.

Planning Department, Urban design guidelines for Hong Kong, http://www.pland.gov.hk.

Venturi, R.; Brown, D. S.; Izenour, S (1977), Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form.

Smith, P. F. (1977), The Syntax of Cities.

Tam, K. (2000), Context: contemplating text in our environment.

Tam, K. (2000), Reading Precis No 4.

Tam, K. (2014), The Architecture of Communication: The Visual Language of Hong Kong's Neon Signs, http://www.neonsigns.hk.

Turner, T. (1996), City as Landscape. A Post Post-Modern View of Design and Planning.

Walker, S. (2001), Typography and Language in Everyday Life: Prescriptions and Practices.

Yixiang Long, P. K. (2012), Does Intelligibility Affect Place Legibility? Understanding the Relationship Between Objective and Subjective Evaluations of the Urban Environment. Environment and Behavior, http://eab.sagepub.com.

呂大樂, 大橋健一編 (1992). 城市接觸 : 香港街頭文化觀察.

Zhang, W. P. (2012), Invisible Logic: Hong Kong as Asian Culture of Congestion.

李思名 (1987), 香港都市問題硏究.

梁智儀 (2009), 路牌字體形&義. 明報周刊, 30–33.

霓虹之城 光輝到此？ 明報周刊.

Notes

1 Ayla Pui-yi Leung, Massage Parlour, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, 2021.