Phoebe Andrew

A visual exploration of everyday heritage in Coromandel

Across the Coromandel Peninsula, weathered hand-painted signs and historic shopfront lettering are gradually disappearing through age, weathering and redevelopment. This capstone project explored how communication design could document, preserve and celebrate these overlooked forms of vernacular typography as part of the region’s visual identity. Informed by my upbringing in the area and my interest in editorial design, typography, photography and print, the project investigated the relationship between everyday lettering, local history and community identity. Through photographic documentation, typographic reinterpretation and material experimentation, I developed a publication that recorded these letterforms and the places they belonged to. This was supported by a community website and a series of printed and tactile outcomes that extended the project beyond the publication.