With heavy rain and shoes so wet they could be wrung out—I finally managed to visit Blackpool to see the finished Comedy Carpet! The scale is breath-taking, not to mention the skill required to create such a piece. I can imagine the hours of pleasure Gordon Young and Why Not Associates had—raiding their font suitcase, designing and typesetting!
The Comedy Carpet is a celebration of comedy on an extraordinary scale. Referring to the work of more than 1,000 comedians and comedy writers, the carpet gives visual form to jokes, songs and catchphrases dating from the early days of variety to the present. Sited in front of Blackpool Tower, the 2,200m2 work of art contains over 160,000 granite letters embedded into concrete, pushing the boundaries of public art and typography to their limits.
The whole Comedy Carpet was like the shallow end in a swimming pool… yes, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but with the summer being very British, I decided against using my SLR, so below are just a few snaps taken on my phone.
