Brendan Ciecko has made an app which typography lovers can use to help make a record of old and typically unique lettering, much of which is slowly fading away. Kyle VanHemert asks him about his motivation for the project:
"The idea for Fontly was inspired by my growing interest in history, the urban landscape, and the eras and evolution of typography and visual style. After traveling from city-to-city, country-to-country, I started realizing that there is a story to be told about places, people, and time … and this story lives in signage. Without picking up a history book, you get a sense of who inhabited the Lower East Side of NYC or Boston’s South End or Krakow’s Old Town; which immigrants settled, what the community valued, their distinct aesthetic, and commercial activities of the past and present. It’s all there."
The Dish 