The LA Times has a really cool new series I am personally obsessed with wherein the “architecture of everyday life” is explored in and around the city. In this iteration, the Times’ style editor Ian Blair waxed poetic about LA’s midcentury typographical elements, best embodied on the facade of Paul Revere Williams’ iconic Beverly Hills Hotel, that are now synonymous with the visual imagination of Southern California feted by David Hockney and so many others. 

Blair spoke to the alien nature of the language contained in apartment typeface, commenting on their need to communicate intimations of luxury and class in a way in which words alone become a most effective means of conveying the interiority of space (no matter how illusory). 

“Apartment signs affect us because of the amount of effort put into the premise: Please stop, look, come inside, see if you desire to belong here. There’s innuendo baked into the concept; the main selling point is that the decadence and uniqueness on the outside might signal the apartment’s undeniable quality within. Suggestion is a powerful aphrodisiac anywhere, but especially in a company town built on selling images. The thing about façades is that they are in on the joke; they know what’s behind the veil, or what’s not. Oftentimes, that is lackluster accommodations. The Dunes promised what? Sand. And yet, on 'Insecure' it did deliver something familiar to Issa and Lawrence: an architecture that could match their charming imperfections.”