Wagner's rinse cycle

I always take in a big sniff when I walk by a laundry or launderette. All that starch, fabric conditioner and the minestrone of detergent whiffs; lemon, orange, jasmine and so on. They also emanate other smells like Perchloroethylene, that's dry cleaning solvent to you and me. And I'm pretty sure that the persons who spawned and sanctioned this were sniffing it in all day long. How else could you explain it?

There's an identikit picture of a laundrette: benches bolted to a Lino floor; an array of vending machines all inviting you to put money into them; and the remnants of brands long since lost in the wash, like the above.

FORCO. It's seemingly straight out of central casting, but the name is derived from the parent company, Forsyth, which was dissolved in the 60s so this sign has been here in the Barbican since this complex was opened in the late 70s.

Those vikings certainly make you feel that your smalls would safe in those machines. And I particularly like the wholly synergistic amendments made by the attendants using the medium of the Post-it Note. But, WTF? It's hard to believe that a designer or a naming consultant (mostly because they didn't exist then) went anywhere near this and Prontaprint and its ilk were yet to appear. So this is probably the devil-child of a printer. Or a mate who 'could draw'. Or someone who had access to Letraset's Action Figures and knew how to burnish them.

Time spent in these places is seemingly eternal and dead. One relies on the charity of others to leave behind entertainment for us in the shape of newspapers, mags, or graffiti if we didn't have the foresight to take our own, so there's a big opportunity here. 

At least in the Barbican they give you the horn.