in.significant sites is a collaborative initiative_ for typophile travelers who document signage along their paths as an insight into the insignificant or significant culture of the city and its community. envisioned in part as website and in part travel guide as bookwork we hope to inspire an alternative way of mapping diverse urban/rural locations through their signs. signs inform us of a city's colour, its climate and the people_ not in precise terms or as closed decisive mapping but as a view of one letter to one word to one phrase and so on to the visual landscape of a given place. in our project, we wish to preserve some of the signs that exist on the facades of building as they change more often than whole buildings. cities such as shanghai are being leveled completely_whole streets demolished from the horizontal to the vertical but in other cases individual shops may be closed and other signs will replace the originals. we would like to create a visual history of incidental architecture_the narrative of the street, which is in constant change. this project has been developed through a series of presentations, meetings and discussions around vernacular typography. i have for the past few years photographed shop signs and street typography during my travels. i also teach an experimental type course to third year design students who are asked geographically identify or locate a part of the city [montreal] through its type. carlos pineda was in the 2004 class and from 2005, ongoing we have exchanged thousands of photos from cities around the world.