Events
Mexican Rótulos: An Endangered Species?
with Romina Hernández
This Letterform Lecture invites you come along for a signage journey across central Mexico City.
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About a year ago, Sandra Cuevas, the mayor of the Cuauhtémoc district in central Mexico City, decided to remove hundreds of hand-painted signs from food stalls, carts, newsstands, and street vendors. Even tamaleras with only a table and a pot had to paint everything plain white and stencil the municipality's logo in blue.
Overnight, what millions of other chilangos walking across the busy city streets always thought was a given, a part of their everyday background, was gone. Why were these Rótulos removed while the ones on buildings remained? Why, after a year in an ever-evolving city with bustling street commerce, are they not back? And why are so many people sad about it?
Join Romina Hernández for a journey through a collection of amazing and overlooked Rótulos from México City and beyond. Explore why some folks chose to put paint on their walls instead of vinyl and how sign painting in México can be both an endangered craft and a relevant everyday activity.
Letterform Lectures are a public aspect of the Type West postgraduate program. The series is co-presented by the San Francisco Public Library, where events are free and open to all.
Romina Hernández
Romina Hernández is a type designer, programmer, sign painter and ocassional woodworker from México City.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design, is a self taught graphic designer, and a graduate of the TypeMedia program at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague in the Netherlands.
These days Romina spends her days designing and creating coding projects and tools for creatives with her team at Tortilla.studio, teaching workshops, making tea, and fixing her bikes. She’s a proudly trans feminist and a cat lady.
