Comments on: The Return of the Hand-Painted Sign

By: Bill Riedel

Bill Riedel — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 20:34:38 +0000

I have been lettering since 1948 and one of the jobs was a monogram on a couple of antique coach carriages that my uncle had restored. They later wound up in the Smithsonian.

By: David Mearns

David Mearns — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:02:37 +0000

Ive been in the industry for 27 years now and started out learning signwriting and boy how the industry has changed. I still have my brushes and use them when i can, although now working within management in a sign and display company i long for the simple life of brushwork. Ive written a few blogs on the industry and this latest one says it all – http://mearnsy.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/the-appreciation-of-a-sign/

Keep up the good work, David.

By: Ricardo Dávila

Ricardo Dávila — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:46:02 +0000

Sarah,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write about the work we did and that, some of us, still do.

Good luck !

By: Derek Workman

Derek Workman — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:35:28 +0000

Many years ago I was a signwriter (the British word for sign painter) in the north of England (although I also worked in France). While I would never consider any of my work a work of art, there certainly were some beauties around at the time. The technique of lettering is far more complex than people think – each letter has a ‘weight’, it’s size in relation to another. For example, a ‘W’ has much more weight than an ‘I’, and the space between them and an ‘O’ will be different.

Writers from different areas – even villages – would have their own style, which became instantly recognisable. Their signs often were real ‘street jewelery’, and as beautiful and complex as print or plastic signs can be, I’ve never seen one that gets anywhere near the beauty of a well planned and executed hand-painted sign. It was a joy to feel the flow of a brush, and a delight to stand back when the sign was finished and think, “That’s not bad!”