Dry Cleaner’s Typography

3 Jul 2006 Category: Features, Japan, Typography

Dry Cleaner’s Typography

Looking for stylish typography? Watch out for Tokyo's dry cleaners!

I got completely lost this morning on my scooter - which resulted in A) getting to know Tokyo a bit better and B) lots of photos of shop-typography. To my big surprise, I noticed that most (in my opinion) stylish typo could be found on the countless dry cleaners around. Here is my favorite collection.

Written by Uleshka

Why are there so many dry cleaners in Tokyo any way? I haven’t got the slightest idea, but it seems that in every little back street is at least one, not to mention all the big ones on the main roads. Are there that many sararii-man who need their suits to stay nice and neat?

Cleaning My Star - chain of dry cleaners on a main street

ShiroYa Cleaning - a little friendly shop in a back street in Shibuya

Well - what I do know is, that I prefer the little shops, not only because they have the better old-school fonts written all over their windows, but also because they have flower pots in front of the shops and often lots of old illustrations about how to treat delicate materials right, how to iron your shirts with love or how to spot the hidden stains in your pants…

we know how to treat wool right!

done by hand one by one - look at his serious face!

we can take that stain off, but we will charge you extra for special stain..

But now to all the different Cleaning signs. You will see that there is a broad assortment of different styles.

ku - the first Kana of the word ku-ri-ni-n-gu (cleaning)

First let’s look at the writings on the shop windows:


a very stylishly written Shi Ro Ya meaning something like White Shop

Then a style which would look good on any t-shirt: Ri Za - Bu in Japanese and reserve in English

Then there is typography on the shops like here on the ones I found in NakaMeguro.

cleaning in green - dry cleaner in Nakameguro

cleaning in pink - dry cleaner in Nakameguro

And then - my favorite ones - the Dry Cleaning Sign Light Boxes! Amazing designs!!!


Fashion Cleaning - What is fashion cleaning??

Cleaning Reserve

very very very cool design for a shop near Jiyugaoka

Watch out for the dry cleaners near you!

Have a light start to the week, your PingMag team.

51 Comments

  1. very, interesting, very stylish, very refreshing for european minds.

    nice idea, thanks mark.us

    Posted by: mark.us on July 3rd, 2006 at 10:33 pm

  2. Kana are definitely made to be designed as desired. Can’t really say that for latin characters.

    Posted by: somaninn on July 3rd, 2006 at 11:29 pm

  3. i like jap typography! it’s looks really colorful and stylish.
    it will be great if there’s more article
    bout jap typography to come in ping…
    great job, keep in up ping! my fav site..

    Posted by: cal .mly. on July 3rd, 2006 at 11:56 pm

  4. you sure that’s not Cleaning Meister?

    Posted by: drone9 on July 4th, 2006 at 2:42 am

  5. i love jap typo
    i wanna do my laundry rite now!

    Posted by: dacio on July 4th, 2006 at 4:49 am

  6. [i]you sure that’s not Cleaning Meister?[/i]

    Good question. “My star” and “Meister” are written identically “マイスター”
    in Katakana.

    Posted by: Ferdinand on July 4th, 2006 at 6:53 am

  7. identical katakana? ha!
    btw. are kanji still evolving, i mean, are there new ones introduced still?
    if not, when was the most recent kanji character designed?
    i think it must be something like 電, things that are rather new?

    Posted by: Lukas on July 4th, 2006 at 11:29 am

  8. The goverment did a Kanji Reform after war and made a lot of them much easier to write and to read (just try to read Japanese magazines from the 1930s and you will know what I mean). As far as I know the Kanji are fixed now. The only liberty some authors have is to use old or rare Kanjis once in a while.

    Posted by: Ferdinand on July 4th, 2006 at 5:09 pm

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    Posted by: This Week’s Weekly Links of the Week - Week 8 » SOME RANDOM DUDE on July 9th, 2006 at 9:56 am

  10. [...] Esse é o mote da Pingmag, uma revista japonesa online que é o site de design mais referenciado na internet. Toda vez que passo por lá é uma agradável surpresa. Hoje por exemplo, o destaque do dia é sobre os designs das camisas do jockeys. Já vi também um artigo interessante sobre um dos autores que havia se perdido em Tokyo com sua câmera digital e fez um belo estudo sobre a tipografia - ou ideografia? - dos letreiros das lavanderias do bairro.Há também entrevistas interessantes como a da fotógrafa japonesa Rinko Kauwachi que - aparentemente - está causando frisson na europa com o lançamento de um livro. Ela sai-se com a sensacional tirada de que gosta de fotografar com a Rolleiflex por causa de seu formato quadrado (6×6) que a exime de se preocupar se está fotografando um retrato ou uma paisagem. [...]

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  11. Although it is written in portuguese, one may find similar things in the Chinese world of http://www.verbeat.org/blogs/lotoazul/abizarricetipograficadasem/

    Posted by: Bruno Porto on November 23rd, 2007 at 10:56 am

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  13. [...] 34. Check out the typography. [...]

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  14. Good question. “My star” and “Meister” are written identically “マイスター”
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