When one isn’t trying to think of the perfect after party play list that pleases absolutely every red blooded person on the planet, one is seeking refuge in type.

The Exeter Hotel is one of the many landmark public houses in CBD Adelaide – One can have a parmagana with an $849 bottle shiraz. The public bar stands as it has since the last renovation for a hundred years – a long room, modest timber finishes, with a long bar and high ceilings – not a white on white fit out in sight. So to stands a history of much of the venacular type. While many cities mow down their obscure type history, in Adelaide it is kept in tact, at least till it’s relevance is discussed at a community level – let’s not forget this is the Australian state that was the first to grant indigenous and woman the right to vote. In the long bar one designer’s interpretation of a local beer brand is allowed to stand next to it’s former incarnation – please enjoy David Lancashire’s interpretation of the Southwark brand in the 1980s completed entirely as a piece of hand lettering. Then there is the Exeter Window lettering, the cross bar of the ‘E’s, is strangely enforced in the ‘H’. One wonders (as only a type nerd can) if the hand letterer made this touch of a whim; on the spot of hand lettering the piece, or was it a design drafted in the weeks, or days before?

Then there is that curious font used for the the recent AGDA National Design Awards developed by Voice studio in Adelaide and it’s inspiration… The Adelaide Produce Exchange facade lettering on Grenfell Street, Adelaide. The word Exchange is a glorious sample of eccentric type design at it’s most individual.