Captivated by the pervasive charm of neon lights across San Diego's diverse neighborhoods, I embarked on a journey to delve into their history, contemporary significance, and local applications. This endeavor resulted in a carefully designed book, wherein I roamed the city to capture the most captivating neon signs, presenting the narrative in three sections: The History of Neon, Neighborhoods, and Modern-Day Usage.
Layout Design / Photography / Typography
Process
My first step in this whole process was for me to research all the neon signs around me and also explore the neighborhoods for myself. I drove around at night and made several stops at different locations to capture the neon signs on my iPhone X. Once I captured all my pictures I edited the photos in lightroom and later on converted some images into grayscale and halftones to emphasize the effect of neon lights even when they are in black and white. For the font choice, I wanted to use a sans serif font which was also bold, so I went with Avenir Black for the bold areas and chose Brett and Beer for the subheads because the type has a strong similarity to neon lights. I chose to split this book into three sections; The History of Neon Lights, so people could be more informed about where they even came to be and why they are so prevalent in San Diego, Neighborhood signage to show the diversity in each neighborhood, and lastly Modern Day Usage to showcase how neon is still utilized today to grab attention.
