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Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Horizontalphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Window Alphabets

In 2014 I moved my studio into a former store on Venusberg in Hamburg. The space is like an aquarium—the front is completely made of glass. I knew immediately: I have to do something with the storefront window.

In the beginning, I put up a line from a song lyric in the window every two weeks. The project was called »Schaufensterkaraoke« and had many fans.

But after three years, I wanted to do something new. That summer I had been in Berlin and painted one of a »Wallphabets« with my colleague Otto Baum. Back in Hamburg, I also started to look for a wall, but then I realized that I had another large empty space: my shop window. That’s how the shop window alphabets came into being.

Every few months I redesign the shop window. So since the first Window Alphabet in October 2018, I have painted twelve window alphabets.

Making of Window Alphabets

Project

Window Alphabets

Series of hand painted alphabets on the shop window of my studio at Venusberg in Hamburg

Size

324 x 200 cm

Medium

Acrylic paint on glass

Year

2017 to 2023

An Overview of all Window Alphabets

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Ligature Alphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Ligature Alphabet, 10. 2018

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Fraktur« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Frakturphabet, 06. 2019

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Weird Alphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Weirdphabet, 12. 2019

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Monoline Alphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Monoline Condensed, 03. 2020

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Dripphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Dripphabet, 05. 2020

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Horizontalphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Horizontalphabet, 08. 2020

Lettering-Alphabet »Snowballphabet« von Chris Campe, Schaufenster-Alphabet, 2020

Snowballphabet, 12. 2020

Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg

Patternphabet, 07. 2021

Wobblephabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, April 2022

Wobblephabet, 04. 2022

Scratchphabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, Dezember 2022

Scratchphabet, 12.2022

Halphabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, Januar 2023

Halphabet, 01. 2023

Flipphabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, Oktober 2023

Flipphabet, 10. 2023

A Full View of the Window Alphabets

Ligature Alphabet

October 2018

The »Ligature Alphabet« was the first shop window alphabet. The idea of merging the letters into ligatures was inspired by the work of the Danish sign painter Jakob Engberg whom I had met shortly before at the Letterheads meeting in London.

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Ligature Alphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg
Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Fraktur« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Frakturphabet

June 2019

The letters of broken scripts are narrow anyway, but for this window alphabet I lengthened them to the max.

Weirdphabet

December 2019

I got the idea for the »Weirdphabet« when someone told me that her child writes the »E« with a constantly changing number of crossbars. I then asked myself at what point an »E« stops being an »E«—at five crossbars? Or at eight? And when does it turn into a comb?

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Weird Alphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg
Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Monoline Alphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Monoline Alphabet

March 2020

This window alphabet does not have a catchy name, I describe the letters as monolinear, ultra condensed, slanted. The shape is a result of the proportions of the window, I wanted to squeeze all the letters side by side on the window.

Dripphabet

May 2020

With the »Dripphabet« I was more interested in the process than the result. I wrote it with a homemade sponge tool and lots and lots of thinned paint.

Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Dripphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg
Serie von Schaufensterbemalungen Window-Alphabet – »Horizontalphabet« von Chris Campe / All Things Letters am Venusberg, Hamburg

Horizontalphabet

August 2020

After the extemely narrow long shapes of the previous two Alphabets, I wanted to do something horizontal. The Horizontalphabet is actually quite simple, you just have to tilt your head to see it.

Snowballphabet

December 2020

In my sketchbook this alphabet was still called »Constellationphabet« because it was inspired by a poster from the »Space Age« of the 1950s and reminded me of constellations. But when I painted it in white on the window pane in the middle of winter, the name »Snowballphabet« turned out to be much more fitting.

Lettering-Alphabet »Snowballphabet« von Chris Campe, Schaufenster-Alphabet, 2020
Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg

Patternphabet

July 2021

The »Patternphabet« was first called »tack alphabet« because I stacked the letters vertically. But because the repetition of the shapes created such beautiful chain-like patterns, I renamed it »Patternphabet«. That name sounds much better too!

Wobblephabet

April 2022

I usually develop my ideas for the alphabets on paper in my sketchbook, but this one I drew directly in Illustrator on the iPad and without the software I might not have come up with this shape. I asked myself, »What would it look like if one side of the letters was soft and elastic?«

Wobblephabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, April 2022
Scratchphabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, Dezember 2022

Scratchphabet

December 2022

For this alphabet advent calendar, I painted the whole pane white. Then I scratched each day a letter from the white surface—without a sketch and with a razor blade as if I would scratch ice. Because the blade stuttered over the paint, some strokes look like ice, too.

Halfphabet

January 2023

For this alphabet, I split the letters down the middle and moved the bottom half one letter to the left. The A is above an A and below a B, the B is above a B and below a C.

I had a photo shoot for Der Hamburger magazine at the beginning of this year, so I painted in January. It’s not fun at three degrees above zero, I don’t recommend it.

Halphabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, Januar 2023
Flipphabet - Handgemaltes Lettering-Alphabet von Chris Campe auf dem Schaufenster ihres Ladenbüros am Venusberg in Hamburg, Oktober 2023

Flipphabet

October 2023

At first glance, this alphabet resembles the previous one. But the letters are similarly narrow, but the idea is more obvious than in the Halfphabet: The letters are mirrored along a horizontal axis.