Sao Paulo Signature

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specificationstitle: Pixao: So Paulo Signatureauthor: Franois Chastanetsize: 19,5 x 26 cmcover: colour hard coverpages: 280 pages, 125 colour photographs,85 black & white illustrationstext: 4 original essays by the author& foreword by Steven HellerISBN 978-2-9528097-1-9 (english language)official release date: April 2007

authorFranois Chastanet, was born in 1975in Bordeaux. A graduate of the coledArchitecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux,he pursued research in 2001 on signagesystems at the Atelier National de RechercheTypographique in Nancy, and completed post-diploma studies in architectural and urbanhistory at the cole dArchitecture de Paris-Belleville in 2002. Currently teaches graphicdesign and typography at the cole Suprieuredes Beaux-Arts de Toulouse, Department ofCommunication. Works in architecture, graphicdesign, lettering and type design (see www.lpdme.org/fc).

preface writerSteven Heller, born in 1950, is a graphicdesigner, New York Times senior art director,critic, curator and teacher at the School ofVisual Arts in New York. He is the author,co-author, and/or editor of over 100 bookson design and popular culture (see www.hellerbooks.com).

abstract / back cover presentation textsDespite laws, pixaes have invaded SoPaulo. A true calligraphic shock, that has caused

a deep aesthetic transformation of the city.Through more than 125 photos taken at thecore of the Brazilian megalopolis as well asa detailed analysis of the phenomenon, SoPaulo Signature deciphers for the very firsttime an unparalleled graphic universe, strictlyreserved to initiates before today.

Pixadores have coined a gestural writtenlanguage all their own, using the buildingsof So Paulo as veritable signboards fortheir messages. The astute analysis which isexpanded upon in this volume, opened mymyopic eyes to a system of writing and ethicof creation that rises above even the most

high-spirited and emblematic American graffiti.For residents of So Paulo it may contributeto blight, but in its massiveness it is an urbanwonder. (extracted from the foreword bySteven Heller)

publisherXGpress / www.xgpress.com52, boulevard Koenigs31 300 ToulouseFrance

conferences invitation in Lisbon in September 2006to give a talk about So Paulo letteformsduring Typographical journeys, the 50th AtypI(Association Typographique Internationale)annual conference at the Universidadede Lisboa / Faculdade de Belas Artes. invitation in London in October 2005to present a lecture during Temporary Type,the fourth annual St Bride Printing Libraryconference. invitation in April 2005 to Codice 5,an international conference in informationdesign at UDLA (Universidad de las Americas)in Puebla, Mexico. invitation in March 2005 to givea conference and a workshop at the coleRgionale des Beaux-Arts de Besanon. invitation in March 2004 to participateto the seminar Les crits urbains : images,enqutes, enjeux at the cole NormaleSuprieure in Paris, an event organizedby Batrice Fraenkel, EHESS.

exhibitions selection of images issued from thephotographic campaign in the streets ofSo Paulo in February 2004 (twelve inkjetprints, format 145 100 cm on polypropylenecanvas), exhibition presented from October 26to November 5 at the Artothque de Pessac(Bordeaux, France) during the 2006 editionof the festival Vibrations Urbaines (pleasecheck www.lpdme.org/fc). new exhibition of large scale photographsis planned in Paris in April 2007.

publications essay entitled Pichao in Eye Magazineno. 56 (summer 2005, pp. 4047). This article

of 8 pages comprises 19 colour photographsand a lettering character set on the insidecovers of the review. Preface by John L. Walters.

Xplicit Grafx, no. 3, December 2006, detailedinterview on the project So Paulo Signature.

promotion, advertising Xplicit Grafx, no. 4, full page advertising,official release date March 2007. Style File, no. 23, full page advertising,official release date March 2007. NuSign, no. 2, double-page presentingthe book (forthcoming).


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The pixaes scene is unique, since, unlike mostother American, European, and even Asiaticbackgrounds, where are reproduced, with moreor less distorsion, the lettering style developedin New York, it develops an original and unseencalligraphic imagery, notably influenced byancient writing models such as Runic orEtruscan lettering, together with variousblackletters such as Fraktur, in a monolinearversion. This scriptural connection obviouslyappeared through the graphic universe ofrecord sleeves, more specifically throughthe iconography of heavy metal and punk-hardcore bands of the 1980s. This adaptationthus supported the birth of a genuine totalcoverage writing, an alphabet competitive inurban environment, that is based on a graphicthought of economy of means developpingmaximum visual effect, strictly concerned withthe skeleton of the letter, using indifferentlyroller or spray can. The observed pixaes canbe seen as an expression of the consequencesof the 21th century megapolis conditions on thedrawing of letterforms, an unespected evolutionof the latin alphabet.

Pixao also integrates features of thePortuguese/Brazilian language, particularlydiacritics, which resist the tendency in theworld of graffiti for English usage. Theseoriginal graphic shapes, emerging from thecontext of urban sprawl, present the recurrentquestion of identity and cultural choice ina globalized visual environment.

context of the projectSo Paulo, the economic capital of Brazil, fifthurban area worldwide, with its twenty millionor so inhabitants, is the theatre of a veritablewar of signs, visual guerrilla warfare againstthe prevalent publicity monopoly and aimed atregaining control of the symbolic space of thecity. This megalopolis has been entirely invadedby an unprecedented writing movement, knownas pixao, which is the Brazilian term for tags,an all-over phenomenon, vastly exceeding interms of quantity all hitherto recognized graffitisituations. Piche meaning tar, pixao signifiesby extension marks and lines made with thismaterial; pixao is a feminine word, the pluralbeing pixaes. The expression also exists incontracted form: pixo and pixos, where theletter x is also pronounced ch. At last, theword pixadores describes the practitionersof this specific handwriting, the graffiti writers.The term originates from the name given tomural writings (mainly political messages,responses to the various political slogans)painted in the streets, drawn with black taron the walls, as far back as the 1950s and 1960s.The expression pixao subsequently lost inthe 1980s its original (political) signification,and came to describe the same technique takenover for the promotion of a name, for the visualglorification of the individual or the group. Theterm would currently seem to be limited to thedescription of these signatures, in that theiramplitude makes one forget the initial practicesthus described.

An authentic identificatory signage system,this phenomenon, almost as old as New Yorkgraffitis and that has developped in a totalyautarkic way, has gradually saturated all thevarious strata of inscription supports available

in the streets since the mid 1980s. As from1990, all faades and the tops of the variousbuildings in the So Paulo metropolis had beencolonized by these urban signatures, the climaxof the invasion having apparently been reachedin the second half of the 1990s.

The signature may be defined, broadlyspeaking, as the stylized autographic appositionof the name, thats to say an identificationdrawing, a hand-written text where the valueof the tracing gesture persists. The writer,in perpetual graphic knocking together of hisidentity, also presents a body, only apparentfrom the trace left by the writing. But what is

of prime interest here is the definition of thesignature as the visible trace of a corporalgesture, where the begetting of gestureand form is reciprocal. A gesture is alsocharacterized by a duration: the calligraphyconserves a tangible trace of the creative uplift,enabling the spectator to relive the uplift in itsactual duration.


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coverHardcover, matte paper four-colour processphotograph on the external side and anillustrated survey of the variations of theobserved alphabet inside, printed in directtone on coloured paper.


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contentEditorial project mainly photographic, 224pages containing 125 photographs, 40 pagesof text comprising 4 original essays fromthe author with a very important footnotessystem creating links with the different images,foreword by Steven Heller, as completecaptions (deciphering and translations ofthe inscriptions-signatures) commenting thecollection of photographs and illustrations ofthe book, that ends with 16 pages presenting85 black and white drawings.

The different photographic series from the firstpart of the book are organized from large scaleobjects to drawing details of letterforms, in aprocess of continuous zoom from architectureto the written sign.

The proposed essays refer on a transverseanalysis, crossing thoughts on architectureand history of writing, the aspiration beingto discover the formal genesis of this illegalwriting phenomenon, analyzing the makingof signs. The word-image, or rather thename-image thus constitutes the basic visualunit of this language, the sole content ofthese writings, from New York to So Paulo.Manifestation of major interference with theurban landscape, the history of this illegalvernacular calligraphic movement, proclaimedas such by its active members, provides anopportunity to apprehend this type of writingin another way, i.e. to consider the graffitiof names from the graphic design viewpoint.


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The last section of the book presents variousdrawings, diagrams and illustrated surveysshowing in detail the handcrafted practicesof the pixadores, and also many reproductionsof exceptional documents such as sketches anddifferent prospectuses designed by Paulistasgraffiti writers themselves.

Our analysis in the present work retracesthe genesis of this So Paulo calligraphy.We examine the long journey through timeand space of typographical shapes, and weexplore musical recordings, essentially from theheavy-metal universe of the 1980s, as a missinglink between forgotten letterforms and currenturban lettering. It seems clear that the pixaoaesthetic originates in the mutations that occurduring the spread of specific fonts, mainlyblackletter, through cultural globalizationin the music cults of the young.


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photograph 1Example from the series showing in detailthe invasion of towers & large scale buidlings.


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photograph 2Example from the series showing in detailsmall buildings & suburban housings.


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photograph 3The neighbourhood Campo Redondo in theSouth zone of So Paulo, one of the largestfavelas in Brazil, birthplace of many pixadores.


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photograph 4Fragment of an inscription from the groupSPCRIMES over an existing painted publicityfor a local politician. The covering potentialof the pixaes indeed overcome in bothquantity & quality the production of theadvertising industry.

Documents

Sao Paulo Signature