Wer mehr zu dem, auf dieser Webseite behandelten Thema erfahren möchte – im Verlag Hermann Schmidt Mainz ist das Buch "Krieg der Zeichen – Spurenlesen im urbanen Raum" erschienen. Auf 288 Seiten und am Beispiel von 1.200 Abbildungen, berichtet Markus Hanzer von jenem Krieg, der im urbanen Raum zwischen Plakatwänden und Medienfassaden, Logos und Leitsystemen, Graffiti, Gedenktafeln und Geschäftsschildern, Verkehrs-, Verbots- und Hinweisschildern tobt.

Im November 2011 hatte der Dokumentarfilm "This Space Available" Premiere. "Billboards and commercial messages dominate the public space like never before. Can we reverse this visual pollution? This Space Available looks at diverse activists from the worlds of advertising, street art, and politics."

Before humans began to make a point of specifically creating signs, they recognized that traces can tell us stories. The ability to read signs and interpret traces has always brought us one step closer to our goals, thus, traces can be regarded as the first medial society column. Throughout time traces have recorded the comings and goings of people around the globe. Traces have told us who passed by, where they went or were going, whether those passing by were in a rush, or in the search of something - perhaps even revealing, who met whom and where or when.

In the urban areas of today's cities we leave our traces and search for signs or marks that are useful to us. Thus the city is a place of discussion and communication, a place where those looking for information find information.

This web site shows ‘traces’ from many countries - photos of writings, logos, signs, pictograms, letters, coats of arms and other typographic works. It is an open forum for discussion and examination of visual communication in everybody's daily life. It attempts to provide views on the insights and motives on concrete organizational forms through confrontation and analytic descriptions.

The web page "Stadtgespräche" replaces the website “Typemuseum” - which is no longer supervised and monitored by Markus Hanzer. Check it out, any day, anytime, anywhere - it's worthwhile!