The scene of the signs – a close look at Hong Kong shop signs as socio-cultural representations

Ask anyone about the unforgettable things about Hong Kong’s urbanscape, and they will tell you the cinematic / cyberpunk aesthetic created by glamorous skyscrapers and ubiquitous shop signs in all scales and forms adhered to unassuming concrete buildings. The eclectic blend of graphic and verbal elements, and association between them and traditional or foreign culture in shop signs has created the alluring ambience and bears witness to local socio-cultural development and integration. With different regions having their main types of economic activities, shop signs of similar business nature which pop up among buildings have created a sense of place and become a vernacular wayfinding device.

The loud colorful chaos was born out of necessity – because of the limited land supply, narrow streets, post-war homogeneous architecture, shop owners in Hong Kong struggled to get their business noticed. The lax rules of shop signs in the past enabled business owners to create different shop signs to promote and inform pedestrians about their business effectively.

Yet the scene of the signs is fading at an unprecedented rate. With rapid urban renewal and gentrification, e.g. renewal of Lee Tung Street (a street selling printed wedding cards), gentrified shopping malls built in Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui (think high-end shopping malls along Victoria Harbour), and government regulations, old buildings are pulled down, so are shop signs. For instance in 2017, more than 1300 shop signs were taken down. The new landmark architecture becomes the ‘signage’ itself, in the sense of a wayfinding device, and the significance of ‘conventional’ shop signs somewhat lowers. What once was the defining feature of Hong Kong’s street view now fades.

With the current context in mind, this article aims to offer a close look on how shop signs become the marks of local culture and life by deconstructing the visual, verbal and physical elements, and hopefully sheds light on the future possibilities for the unique urban visual element.

Learn the languages – how shop signs convey messages

Visual conventions and medium of shop signs

Shop signs come in all forms and scales, but some have their distinct visual conventions and medium which won’t be mistaken as signs of other types of businesses. These are pawn shops, massage parlours, exchange shops, medical business, and hourly hotels. Their visual conventions, i.e. symbols and medium, are constructed organically with change of nature of business.

Pawn shops

Be it in canvas, plastic lightbox, or neon tubes, one can always recognize a pawn shop by finding the signage with a traditional symbol which consists of a stylized bat and a coin. The Chinese pronunciation of ‘bat’ is the same as that of ‘happiness’, making it represent auspiciousness.

Medical business

Once being a humble white lightbox, pharmacy signs are now made of colorful LED lights with registered trademark (the symbol of letter ‘P’ combined with letter ‘X’ placed in a white square of a red cross). After the Individual Visit Scheme was introduced in 2003 to let mainlanders visit Hong Kong and Macau freely, tourism in Hong Kong gained another source of income. Tourists buy duty-free baby formula, medicine and whatnots, and pharmacies become popular among them, so these types of shops started to attract them with loud LED signs.

As for small clinics, they present things in a much more subtle manner, using a humble lightbox and clean text layout because of restrictions on related signage.

Exchange shops

Small exchange shops are frequently found in tourist areas. Most of the shops show the existence by using yellow in the stall and LED lights. Whether in daylight or in the dark, people can always spot them. With the types of currency available shown, they can have a clearer idea which to go.

Hourly hotels

Though named as hotels, they are different from the usual ones. Hourly hotels have their signage in neon of warm colors and lilac, which enable people to see them far away in the dark. Frequently found in old buildings, they offer cheap accommodation for specific needs. Some hotels are labeled ‘just offering rooms’, which make their nature more obvious. The neon pink still glows when night falls, hinting a nostalgic sense of lurking desire.

Massage parlours

Body massages are popular in Hong Kong. While some run them in chain stores, a lot are operated on a small scale. Shops providing affordable massage are usually located on upper floors of old buildings. The shop owners may place a plastic lightbox near the staircase of the building to inform and attract customers. A small signage may also be hung from the building. A roll-up banner with photos of service may also be set up. It is said that if a foot massage shop provides erotic service, there will be a foot with a smiling face on the sign, but so far the statement is not supported with evidence .

Evoking authenticity

Shop signs are here to promote business, so it needs to be persuasive enough to make potential customers visit one shop instead of another. Authenticity is a useful way to attract people in terms of delivering trust and sparking curiosity. This section explores how different ways of applying traditional and foreign visual and verbal elements make businesses achieve the goal, and how these reflect the rich background of Hong Kong’s cultural exchange and integration since the colonial period, which defines the city’s vernacular aesthetic and cultural identity.

Sheer directness

When it comes to delivering traditional ambience of local business, direct use of Chinese calligraphy (typefaces or custom writing), historic paintings, and ancient symbols is found in shop signs. The tradition of calligraphic shop signs has a long history before the rise of digital typefaces. Different styles e.g. beiwei kaishu and lishu, are applied in different media, depending on the ambience a certain business would like to give. For instance, a Chinese clinic may have its signage in powerful calligraphic strokes to make itself appear trustworthy, while a bakery may choose calligraphy with a spontaneous touch to show friendliness. Lettering is also used in small businesses to display it to pedestrians.

For businesses who would like to evoke a sense of foreignness, they do the similar things, opting for historical drawings, people in traditional clothing, flags, and place names, promoting the uniqueness among competitors. Related language and letterforms / scripts are also used, and they become graphic devices rather than verbal ones. It turns out the signs act as quick guides to foreign culture, with the directness and itself displayed on streets. Yet it could also reinforce the stereotype, since they have already adopted the typical expression, or things that people usually think of when describing a certain place.

Misuse and separation of cultural symbols and origins

Sometimes accidents just happen, e.g. the shop signs have the glyphs and names different from the cultural origin of the business. The ‘mismatch’ shows an important aspect of vernacular shop signs, that gut feeling creates interesting encounters. Only symbols and names will be taken, leaving origins behind. From visual stereotypes to typefaces and phrases, as long as they make the business look ‘exotic’ and ‘cool’, they will be taken, and shop owners and the audience won’t care too much about it, even if it has nothing to do with the business.

Know the places – the relationship between shop signs and architecture

Business owners utilize every single space of the buildings to place shop signs and promote the business. Among the chaos, the shop signs are divided into two parts, the ones with lower mobility, i.e. adhered to buildings and shopfront, and the movable ones. With advanced technology and extensive application, digital screens are also used for informing and promoting business.

A typology of shop signs

Signs with lower mobility

The shop signs can be adhered as extension of the buildings, (on the top of the building, projecting columnar, projecting irregular, and projecting banner), and be placed on the buildings (façade coverage (including billboard on building surface), building corner fascia, building fascia, building columnar, and digital advertising screen. These are viewed from far away. The ones on shopfronts (shopfront columnar, shopfront projecting, shopfront fascia, shop window, plaque inside shop) are to be viewed closely.

Signs with higher mobility

These include advertising lightbox, shop signs behind glass windows, roll-up banner, awning, billboard/signage along pavement, and signage behind glass walls.

Defining spaces

Shop signs define the architecture and act as wayfinding devices in different scales, forming a sense of place and make the streets suitable for wandering, but gentrification and urban renewal has changed the ways shop signs are presented and its impact on wayfinding.

From delightful chaos to sterile order

Urban development, renewal and gentrification affect the arrangement of shop signs in terms of layers, scale, and its relationship with architecture. In the past, numerous signs of different sizes were placed, as a part of buildings/shops and extensions of buildings. They form layers and layers of signage. For example, in the case of tong lau (tenement buildings built from the late 19th century to the 1960s in Hong Kong ), with lower floors as shops and upper floors as flats, the shops utilize the shopfront and hang signage on the buildings to promote business. The homogenous post-war modernist composite buildings make business owners add shop signs on the surfaces of buildings and as extensions, which adds identity to the architecture and creates a backlash to modernism.

With ongoing urban development and changes, although shop signs can also be extensions of buildings and shops, they are now in a smaller size and scale. They are more likely to be found as shopfront projecting signs or fascia instead of extension of buildings; if they are found as building extension, they are likely to be adhered in an orderly manner instead of spontaneous layers.

In addition, the half-emptiness near the buildings also acts as a wayfinding device, in terms of indicating the presence of a certain building. It is found in hotels and new shopping malls, which owns a reasonably big area, whether for entrance, driving area or simply rest / open space. When having the obvious emptiness in an area full of buildings and narrow pavements, it informs pedestrians of its presence.

Also, with gentrification and urban renewal, shop signs tend to be placed indoors / inwards of the architecture instead of being adhered outside it. In gentrification, landmark architecture is built and glass is used extensively, forming large glass windows or walls of the architecture. This enables people to see inside of the buildings. To make the best use of the material, large advertising canvases indicating the business are used inside the buildings, and it can inform people about the business without actually putting a signage on the building wall. This creates flexibility of the signage, that the content can be changed whenever shops change. Some shops place signs of different shapes or advertising canvas behind the glass walls, and the landmark architecture amplified the visual impact. Moreover, landmark buildings act as a wayfinding device as they can be recognized far away. Being huge glass boxes of different shapes and displaying different kinds of business, they challenge the conventional placement and forms of shop signs.

As for commercial skyscrapers, they usually have their names at the entrance. The top of the building is reserved for the building name, or sometimes for the huge neon signs or lightboxes of global commercial and financial corporations, enabling people to see them from far away.

Role of shop signs in wayfinding

Shop signs serve as tools of anticipation in wayfinding by showing direction and indicating the business on their own, informing people of the nature of the place and upcoming shops, thus offering an effective way for searching and creating ambience of the street, They make the streets suitable for exploring and wandering as people can have a clearer impression of the place. When without shop signs, ways of walking become more searching-oriented. People need to deliberately find the place and more rely on maps (whether digital and paper), the wayfinding process will be more detail-oriented. The presence of signage changes the way of walking.

The significance of conventional shop signs are certainly decreasing in terms of wayfinding and creating a sense of place, but with their properties that landmark architecture lacks, i.e. flexibility towards change in terms of content and form, and the spontaneity of evoking emotions, shop signs see the opportunity in terms of generating ambience, and making the best use of its versatility of medium, mobility and permanence of message. Moreover, they are one of the important artifacts that reflects the vernacular culture and socio-economic development. The urban landscape of Hong Kong is rapidly changing, but we hope the spirit of cultural exchange and integration in the city is still well alive.