Documenting the Signs and Sign Painters of Bursa, Turkey

In last week’s ‘BLAG 09 Digital Companion’ I mentioned that there was more to come from Murat Ertürk and his ongoing work documentating the hand-painted signs and sign painters from Bursa, Northwest Turkey. Here he introduces the digital archive, YazıBursa (The Lettering of Bursa), that he has developed with his brother.YazıBursa: A Living Archive of Bursa’s Vernacular LetteringBy Murat ErtürkBursa was the Ottoman Empire’s capital and carried the commercial, architectural and cultural legacy of that era into the centuries that followed. Its position on the Silk Road ensured it continued as one of the region's centres of trade, craft and art, while the city’s major Ottoman mosques helped sustain a strong tradition of calligraphy.After the Republic was declared, the adoption of the Latin alphabet in 1928 created an enormous demand for new signage, much of which was produced by local sign painters and calligraphers. In the years between the alphabet reform and the rise of computer-aided…