FONTS IN PARADISE: SIGNS OF MID-CENTURY HAWAII a new book of photographs by Mark Jonathan Davis

96 pages, 249 color images 10" x 8" hardcover

available now at Amazon.com and fontsinparadise.com

During a Hawaiian vacation in 2011, I began photographing 1960s apartment building signs in Waikiki. Many of these mid-century buildings had once been motels, with idyllic names and leisurely fonts designed to entice vacationing tourists.

Oceanside Manor. The Tradewinds. Tropic Surf.

These swanky typefaces were also used around Honolulu for restaurants, businesses, and local attractions. Some were torn down, some were painted over, but many of these signs still endure and beckon beneath palm trees and tropical sky.

Today, more than 50 years later, they recall for us the breezy optimism of post-war Hawaii. Their weathered letters linger on as loyal, noble monuments to the idea of paradise.

—Mark Jonathan Davis

MARK JONATHAN DAVIS is a writer, director, comedian, and photographer. Best known as the lead singer of Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine, Davis has launched a variety of successful creative art and entertainment projects during his 30+ year career in show business.

Davis has worked as a morning show air personality on KROQ, a jingle singer for NBC, CBS, and TVLand, a voice actor for Warner Brother cartoons, and a concept designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. He's also appeared as an animated singing Lego MiniFig in "," performed a "Stupid Human Trick" on the Late Show with David Letterman, guest-starred on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "Newsradio," and written jokes for President Bill Clinton.

Through his independent record label Coverage Records, Davis has recorded, designed, and produced more than 20 critically-acclaimed Richard Cheese CDs, including "Johnny Aloha: Lavapalooza," an album featuring Hawaiian-style "tiki music" covers of rock and rap hits.

It was during production of this album in Honolulu that Davis began photographing mid-century apartment buildings around the islands. His love of Hawaii, and his lifelong study of art, design, and architecture history, coalesced into the "Fonts In Paradise" book project, which Davis self-published in June 2019. Davis's next book, a career retrospective autobiography titled "Atlas Lounged," will be released in 2020 by his production/publishing venture World Art Supply.

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