Bar Frankfurt Calypso

was the name of the bar just round the corner from the hotel. The sign was black lettering on an orange background. In three different fonts. "Bar" was normal. In Arial, perhaps. "Frankfurt" followed the standard practice of using Gothic script for a German name. The "Calypso" element was rendered in a wonderful 1970's style - I have been searching for the font for about 45 minutes now, to no avail. It was bliss. And had evidently not been changed since the bar opened in the late 70's or early 80's. An aberration, I thought. Like a kebab house in the provinces. Everywhere, and especially bars, rebrands itself about four times a week in the UK, and in a major cosmopolitan European city, it must be at least twice a day, if not more frequent. Then there was another. Not the same style, but from the same period. And another. In fact, apart from international brands - Habitat, Starbucks, FNAC, etc, most of the businesses seemed to be small concerns with no desire or need to change their image. Even the Keisy supermarkets make very little effort:



Yet despite this anti-branding, there is a conciousness to the naming of businesses. German and Austrian names are prevalent - especially for bars and restaurants - Frankfurt, Duesseldorf and Innsbruck all appeared at least once, and not one of the bars seemed to have any particular Teutonic influence save the name. I imagine it is due to the fact that Germans were the first real mass tourists in Europe, and must have got to Barcelona in large numbers in the late 1960's.