A designer aims to save a dying art form with the very tools that are creating its demise.

Ever notice that a certain quality of cultural evolution can sometimes evolve past things of value because of the human “need” for faster, cheaper, more accessible goods and services? The backlash created by this happening can limit creativity, and creates a kind of mall experience of living which deadens a sense of individuality. But it’s quicker, cheaper and easier to categorize, right?

In India, sign painting is an accessible, common and vibrant art form. Even if we have not visited, we’ve seen the colorful, unique and wildly beautiful buses, storefronts and carts from movies and pictures. A young creative from India noticed that with the advent of desktop publishing, the hand painted works were disappearing from the streets, leaving behind hideous plastic banners and signage. He decided to be proactive in capturing the spirit of hand painting through his project handpaintedtype.com.

“My name is Hanif Kureshi and I’ve always wanted to become a street painter.” He explains.

“I used to work with street painters during my vacations in school. My dad asked to me to join the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda to become one and later I learned about graphic design and typography. Today I work with Wieden+Kennedy New Delhi which needless to say is a completely different world from that of a street painter. I now know both these worlds intimately and I felt that I should do something to link them before painters disappear from streets. I also thought it important to preserve this art form for future generations to understand and hopefully, appreciate.”

Kureshi designed a process to archive and save the hand in the type used by these artisans. He is engaging people to help in his quest to capture the unique beauty and originality of these artists’ work. By utilizing the very technology that threatens the art form, Kureshi captures, digitizes and sells the artists’ distinct typefaces on HandPaintedType.

The project has the potential to seize the moment before this cultural craft is lost forever. Thanks to Kureshi, perhaps India can be further spared from that awkward, MySpace era design phase of sparkles and bad web-friendly fonts.

Kureshi’s own design work can be seen at his site hanifkureshi.com, and he is always looking for others interested in collaborating on his HandPaintedType project.

Painter, Kureshi is featured in this video which highlights the importance of the project to the art form. Interesting.

Eco, trends, art, creativity and how they tumble through social media to shape culture fascinate EcoSalon columnist Dominique Pacheco. Her personal blog, mixingreality, speaks to these topics daily, and here at EcoSalon, she takes a weekly look at the intersection of eco and art. We call it heARTbeat.

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