Lyrics by Langston Hughes & Elmer Rice

The story depicts life in a Lower East Side tenement between one evening and the following afternoon. Through expressive lettering, Apeloig’s poster turns the title into a New York City stoop, the ubiquitous stage and front row seat for urban theater. A lowtech approach was used to create it: paper stencils of each letter in the words “street” and “scene” were made and folded twice. These were then assembled and stacked, their cumulative folds creating a flight of steps lit as if by a single streetlight and seen from a receding angle. The folded planes also resemble parts of a building’s façade: bricks, pediments, lintels, and arches. The negative spaces and shapes become doors, windows, crawl spaces, alleys, and crevices.

The irregularities of the handmade letters catch the light less predictably than would smooth surfaces, and other marks of process – creases and occasional stray lines – create movement and tension. The harsh, unforgiving nature of the urban landscape is evoked through strongly contrasting black and white, light and shadow.

Typography: Akkurat, designed by Laurenz Brunner, in 2004, Lineto foundry

2 posters

manuel kreuzer

“macht.los”

manuel kreuzer

“Hania Rani – inspiring moments”