SADAK - Hand Painted Street Signs in India - Aradhana Seth

Since the 1990s, the familiar, vibrant hand-painted sign-boards of Indian streets - once a defining element of the country’s urban landscape - have increasingly been replaced by printed vinyl, digital hoardings and generic signage. SADAK: Hand Painted Street Signs in India by Aradhana Seth documents this rich visual heritage before it fades. 

Through her photographic archive, Seth shows a multitude of shop-shutters, doors, walls and signboards whose bold colours, playful typography and graphic freshness once populated cities from Kolkata to Delhi to Tamil Nadu. The book is organised into three thematic sections - Commerce & Services, Culture, and Nature & Landscapes - inviting the reader to reflect on how a utilitarian language of signs became part of the poetry of everyday life. 

Complementing the images are essays by Kajri Jain and Francesco Clemente - one framing this art historically and culturally, the other sharing personal reflections - as well as portraits of the sign-painters themselves (Raza Abbas, Praveen Chauhan, Prashant Janardhan Dalvi, Shakeel) who once turned walls and shutters into canvases. 

This book makes for a compelling addition to your slow-fashion / artisan-craft focused website: it emphasises the value of the hand-made, of visual craftsmanship, of craft-typography as cultural artefact. A book not just to be read, but to be viewed, absorbed, and displayed.

Language: English

184 pages

Dimensions: 16.5 × 23.5 cm (paperback, french-fold)  

ISBN: 979-1-2803-3612-5

Publisher: Humboldt Books, 2023