An Endearingly Cranky Tour of Street Typography

James Victore has worked hard at his design career, reaching such mileposts as exhibiting posters at MoMA and doing work for Esquire and The New York Times. So when he's strolling down the block and sees a questionable font (in this case, for Starbucks), you maybe want to listen to his opinion that it's a "fat, nasty sans serif."

Victore recently took a spin around Queens and Brooklyn in an old Army jeep, examining signs and typography to "try to figure out what the hell it's for." His judgment tends to fall critical. Here's his thought on a waxing center's eggplants-mating logo: "There's been a designer here... which is not always a good thing." On an artsy-fartsy corporate billboard: "This would be an awesome piece of lettering and a great piece of street art, if it was." On ​a foster-care ad featuring whimsically drawn words like "achievement" and "potential": "So what they're trying to get the words to say, they should've worked harder and had an idea first."