Typophile

Designer Travel - Europe

erictastic

Good evening, all.

I’m a design student, about a year away from finishing my BFA in Graphic Design. As a graduation gift from my parents, i’m getting an all expenses paid trip to Europe. I’m looking for opinions on where exactly I should go. Preferably somewhere with good design to study and interesting sights to see. (A good nightlife wouldn’t hurt, either). I was leaning toward Berlin, but I wanted to broaden my options by polling some of you who live in or have visited Europe before.

To recap, my “checklist” of a good candidate:
1) Active, on-display design culture
2) Interesting sights
3) Good places to catch some live music
4) Just good to visit in general

Suggestions? :)

Thank you!
Eric

No grand typo tour would be complete with out a pilgrimage to Trajan’s Column.

Do a bit of traveling around Holland. It’s not big, and the design culture can be seen in everyday things like signs, architecture, transit, etc. I’m always blown away by the quality of Dutch signage!

—John

Sadly, Trajan’s Column “or at least the inscription part” is covered by scaffolding right now. You can make out that it’s there, but it’s hard to get a good look. Rome is chock full of other inscriptions, though. There are some real gems in the Forum.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/sculpture/cast_courts/index.html

Casts of Trajan’s column are available at the V&A in London.

Tim

There’s lots of old shop signage in Madrid, (or there was when I went 8 years ago anyway). It’s a very underrated city BTW - everyone goes on about Barcelona, but I liked Madrid better.

Nick Cooke

You could go to Budapest, the places, the people, the museums are great, not to mention the hungarian food.

I can recommend Berlin heartily. There are a lot of day-trip destinations that you can sort of radiate out to that are type-appropriate.

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