Whilst documenting the many town centres of London (and some points in between) by filming with my camera; I have been listening out for overheard quotes, in each town centre I visit. Sometimes this means waiting a while or actively seeking out people who are talking, by subtly walking in their direction, or lingering in their vicinity for a short time. This isn’t always necessary – it seemingly depends largely on what time of day I choose to go ‘documenting’. I prefer the mornings; setting off as early as possible and as such it can be difficult to find people speaking, most seem to be travelling solo, presumably to work between the hours of 5am – 8am (no matter the day). I’ve also been struck by how many overheard quotes are from people using their phones as they travel. It seems like a no brainer in some ways, but I do often feel like I’m the only one present in the ‘here and now’ as I’m out and about.
Anyway, I wasn’t initially sure what I would use the gathered quotes for; it was an idea I had pursued on my project To/From/To – A Walk, and just enjoyed the process and found-poetry element of noting down what London had to say. As I progress gathering quotes, I seem to be finding an almost linear understanding of them, despite the literal distance between each sentence obtained.
Despite noting them down in the order that I hear them from town to town, I have been collating them into a book in alphabetical order according to London boroughs and then according to the alphabetical order of the town centres within. I have, in some cases, divided the boroughs slightly differently – in order to fit them all onto the pages as I’m currently formatting them. For example, in Barnet there are a total of sixteen town centres, however, three of them also come under other boroughs, in addition to Barnet – in this case, to ensure I can fit the text onto the page legibly, I have attributed the towns Burnt Oak, Cricklewood, and Colindale / The Hyde, to their other boroughs – which have less town centres within them.
To format the book itself, I am using Adobe InDesign, which is my preferred software for creating PDFs, and publications. I decided to format the book as an A5 document. Each borough has it’s own page of listed Town Centre Quotes, and I have created an additional page on which I will loosely explain the driving concept behind the book itself, being that –
this is a collection of overheard conversation quotes, noted down by me as I pass through (or loiter) in the 241 town centres of Greater London and the City.
To me, this feels like a poem written in the most authentic way, by London itself – I am also considering collating what I gather on each trip into a poem each (depending on how long it would be to read it as one, full length poem), as I really like the natural structuring of some existing quotes lists.
Another consideration I’m making is whether to include the quotes with details of the trips I make and overhear them on. Perhaps mapping out where they were heard (assuming I remember, but fortunately I think I do, in most cases), or just displaying the Route Map of the trip, with the quotes written underneath. If I chose this style of formatting, I think I would prefer to work with A4 pages/ spreads, in order to show the Route Map in as much detail as possible. I would include a code still with each image, but would list the visited town centres, and overheard quotes together in a box on the page.
The font I have been using for the document is one I found on Adobe’s Font page. It is called “P22 Underground”, and is designed by Edward Johnston, Paul D. Hunt, and Richard Kegler (From P22 Type Foundry). I had found the font by searching for Edward Johnston as a font designer – he was in fact the person who designed the Johnston font, which is still used today (though from time to time has been updated) on all Transport for London signage and information.
