Words: Lisa Cassidy
Like Georgian doors, traditional shopfronts are one of the old reliable postcard images of Ireland. They’re part of our design history, there’s a loose formula behind them that usually makes them visually appealing, and most importantly, they look great when you put dozens of photographs of them together in a grid.
Contemporary shopfronts don’t have it quite so easy, and at its worst, shopfront design becomes a bit of an arms race. Each shop tries to make its sign bigger and brighter than its neighbours, projecting out onto the street, and advertising as many things as they can fit into the windows. If you go back before the traditional shopfront and look at the sitting-room shops in smaller towns, where you didn’t need a sign or a window display because people just knew what you did and where to find you, you can trace the changes in shopfront design developing along with the growth of advertising and consumer choice.
The great thing about the traditional formula is that it was hard to make something eye-bleedingly awful if you stayed close to the rules and gave it a lick of paint occasionally. The shop window was framed on either side by pilasters, an echo of classical architecture and a way of indicating the street grain. Beneath, the stall-riser (a solid panel) protected the window from street dirt, as well as giving it a base visually. Above the window, the fascia usually acted as the sign-board with lettering either applied in timber or painted on, and the entrance door (between or beside the shop windows) kept the human scale visible.
For contemporary shopfronts, many of the requirements are the same but the aesthetic aims are different from the older, heavier style. The city’s different too, and we have a much wider choice of materials available. Even the Tidy Towns competition, that bastion of urban avant-garde, has recognised the need for contemporary design: quoted in Sean Rothery’s illustrated study, The Shops of Ireland, the special categories have included “the best-maintained traditional shop front or the best designed modern shopfront.”
The same guidelines for new shopfronts appear from most local authorities, including Dublin City Council: the fascia shouldn’t be too deep, the sign should only have the name and the street number, lettering shouldn’t be too big, signs should be within the fascia and not a stuck-on block in the middle, shops spanning more than one building plot should keep the grain of the original plots visible, lighting shouldn’t be intrusive or too bright. Etcetera.
If you’re imagining some exception that combines good design and a careful consideration of context, the guidelines might seem prescriptive and old-fashioned, but there’s a great reality-check in any stroll around Dublin. For the worst eyesores, it’s like the guidelines were used as a checklist of dares – can we make this fascia any bigger? Will we be able to cram in a list of every single thing we sell?
So, where is it being done well? There’s an interesting example in three restaurants owned by John Farrell: 777 on George’s Street, and Dillinger’s and The Butcher’s Grill in Ranelagh. None of them use the fascia to identify the restaurant, but each one’s part of a cohesive shopfront and in harmony with its neighbours. Each of the restaurant signs is a continuation of the graphic identity used throughout the business, and the three identities were created by graphic designer Ronan Devlin.
For the American-style Dillinger’s, the name is applied directly to the windows, enhancing the New York bistro mood and managing to evoke an unfussy nostalgia without leaning into it too far. The Butcher’s Grill is covered in white tiles, continuing the interior’s sense of the clean, tough, no-nonsense mood of a butcher’s shop. There’s a diagram of a cow sectioned into cuts of meat on each side of where the fascia might be, sitting like imaginary brackets in the middle of the shopfront. 777 uses a projecting sign, a gorgeous graphic object in itself, and the restaurant front is so close to opaque that you can just about make out flickering light inside. It’s atmospheric and it makes the interior even more intriguing, like passing by a lock-in and wishing you were part of it.
In Portobello, Dolls boutique and Bibi’s café are (literal) sister businesses nestled into the grain of residential streets. The signage was created by hand by James Earley, graphic designer and graffiti artist, who describes the “delicate illustration style” already in use in Dolls as a major inspiration for the work. The result is downright pretty, with a floral motif for Dolls and the addition of elements like teacups and birds for Bibi’s.
For Earley, it was important that this was done by hand, “using vinyl for a delicate style like this would have completely flattened the whole piece and taken all sense of charm and character out of the final result. Though there might be a danger of nostalgia in the idea of widespread handpainted signage, it does add texture and a three-dimensional aspect, and for some businesses, delicacy and the obvious human touch will be important. The question of texture isn’t just for independent retailers or a handmade aesthetic, as the Karen Millen shop on Grafton Street demonstrates – the black fascia is striped with two different finishes, and it adds tactility to the minimal white-on-black composition.
Across the city, you can see older shopfronts being put to contemporary use with good results. Lilliput Stores in Arbour Hill occupies a traditional shopfront with heavy scroll brackets to either side of the signboard. Lilliput Stores is a business that provides a focal point for creative and community life in Stoneybatter, and outside, there’s a fold-out bench built below the window, turning the shopfront into a direct invitation to sit and chat. The take-away café on Montague Street, originally designed for Milkbar by O’Donnell + Tuomey architects, incorporates an exterior bench as a natural extension of the interior counters.
In Temple Bar, seating-as-shopfront has an even bigger role for Roasted Brown, a first-floor coffee shop that makes up for its lack of ground floor frontage by putting big slabs of seating bearing their name out on Curved Street. The challenge faced by businesses open to the public on upper floors is perhaps even greater, but the solution at Roasted Brown manages to enhance a street that’s always been short of a few benches while also making themselves clearly visible.
Right beside Lilliput Stores, The Joinery provides studio and project space behind the same style of shopfront. The name is written on the window, but the big ‘J’ on the door is the more interesting part – instead of a building number, here’s confirmation that you’ve found the right place.
It might be tempting to blame economic challenges, to suggest that there’s just no budget left for design work when businesses are struggling, but money isn’t the only solution. Makeshop, the Science Gallery’s offshoot combining workshop space and retail, continues the shop’s inventive, hands-on spirit with a handmade sign. It’s a reasonably traditional shopfront with the timber painted black, standing out against the pale interior, and the lettering is within the fascia. The letters were cut from black board and use orange tape to create an origami-style schematic, all folds and outlines. The result is sharp and distinctive, a good idea done well.
Makeshop isn’t just an example of ingenuity, it’s another reminder of how the outward appearance of a business can reflect what’s happening inside, for better or worse. Their signage is playful and DIY, and rather than hiding this or just getting away with it, they photographed the process and put it up online so that anyone curious can see how it was done.
Ultimately, it might be good for contemporary shopfronts that they’re not just the domain of a signwriter or a signmaker any more. The responsibility might fall to design professionals like architects or graphic designers, or some totally unexpected and inventive alternative. There is lots of potential for the planning authorities to minimise the horror, and if there’s a positive omen, it’s the pixel art designed by Craig Robinson for Dublin City Council, with mosaic icons representing the city and its characters to indicate public wi-fi hotspots – the approach is creative, clever, and a subtle addition to Dublin’s public realm.
For the rest of us, we can at least appreciate and encourage what’s good in contemporary design, even if it’s not on a postcard.
