Reading Notes: Lewis Blackwell —

Edward Fella: Letters on America

(pp. 5–11)

In this text, Blackwell presents Edward Fella’s work as a sustained act of close looking at everyday lettering in the American landscape. Rather than treating signs as messages to be read quickly and forgotten, Fella treats them as material traces of culture, labour, and time. The lettering photographed across roadsides, shop windows, and small businesses is described as being “on America” rather than about it, suggesting that these marks are inseparable from the physical and social fabric of the country.

A key idea introduced here is density and clutter as defining features of American visual culture. Blackwell describes signage as omnipresent, layered, and relentless, forming a kind of continuous visual noise that shapes how places are experienced. These letters appear on every surface, in every material, often competing with one another for attention. This excess is framed not as a flaw, but as a cultural characteristic linked to capitalism, commerce, and individual expression (see examples of window signage and roadside lettering on pp. 6–7).

Importantly, Blackwell stresses that Fella’s approach is not ironic or mocking. Unlike some designers who treat vernacular signage as humorous or kitsch, Fella looks closely and respectfully. His photographs focus on fragments, details, and irregularities rather than complete signs. Cropped letters, awkward spacing, worn surfaces, and accidental compositions become the subject. This shift in focus reveals the human hand behind the lettering and values what is usually ignored or dismissed as “low” or unrefined design.

The text also highlights Fella’s interest in process rather than outcome. The photographs are not presented as finished works, but as visual notes — part of an ongoing investigation into form. Fella is less concerned with what the signs say and more interested in how letters behave: how they sit next to each other, how they degrade over time, and how they interact with their surfaces. This makes the work feel provisional and exploratory, aligning closely with practice-based research rather than documentation.

Blackwell contrasts American signage with European visual environments, suggesting that European cities often rely on architectural continuity and historical fabric, while American environments are built through layers of signage. In this context, signs do not simply sit on buildings; they become architecture themselves. This distinction reinforces the idea that lettering can shape national identity and spatial experience in fundamentally different ways depending on cultural and economic conditions.

Another important theme is value. Fella’s work elevates what is normally seen as disposable or insignificant. By isolating small typographic moments, he assigns importance to irregularity, error, and imperfection. Blackwell describes this as a transgressive act, not because it breaks rules overtly, but because it asks viewers to slow down and pay attention to things that visual culture trains us to overlook. This reframing challenges dominant ideas of good taste, professionalism, and correctness in graphic design.

Overall, these pages position Fella’s work as an argument for attentive seeing. Lettering is shown as a living, evolving language shaped by many hands rather than by design systems alone. For graphic design practice, this suggests that meaning can be found not only in polished outcomes, but in fragments, accidents, and everyday visual noise. The text encourages designers to treat observation, collection, and reflection as legitimate and valuable forms of design research.

(Picture taken for pp. 2)