Sign Making

Painting and sign making techniques.

Brilliant new website: Traditional Sign Maker Magazine

Via the Signpainter Movie I came across this facinating site which profiles signwriters and has already introduced me to the beautiful world of Filete Porteño in Argentina. Lots more good stuff to come from them no doubt…

30 Mar 2012
Hand painted wall signs and murals from Hungary

József László is an artist in Budapest, Hungary, specialising in photo-real hand painted advertising, other hand painted wall advertising and murals. His work impressed me so I thought I’d share some of the pictures he sent me. Some of these remind me of Colossal Media’s work, some are more like the signs I saw in Bangladesh, and […]

16 Mar 2012
Rick Janzen of Streamline Studios creates a ‘ghostsign’ from scratch

Photos: Rick Janzen This photo essay shows the various stages in recreating the effect of a ghostsign using water-based paints (the rest of the blog is worth checking out too, especially this post and this one). This appears to be a different technique to that employed by Colossal Media at the end of this video. […]

11 Mar 2012
Faded Paint: Trailer for forthcoming signpainting documentary

The Colossal Media Facebook page recently alerted me to this trailer (see below) uploaded by Rick Janzen about a film he’s making about the declining art and craft of signwriting. This will add to the work done by the Signpainter Movie team. Faded Paint – The Vanishing Sign Painter from Rick janzen on Vimeo. You can see some of the […]

4 Mar 2012
How-to guide for large scale hand painted advertising

Nice 11-part photo essay from Business Insider documenting the production of a 10-storey hand painted sign in New York. Text here, photos here, sign produced by Sky Tag.

9 Feb 2012
Miniature Planet: Ghostsigns for Model Makers

I love this, miniature ghostsigns for use on model railways and other small scale hobbies. This will be a welcome time saver for those who don’t have the dedication of Emmanuel Nouaillier. That said, the extent to which they’re modelled on actual signs is difficult to gauge… There is currently a collection of 25 available […]

7 Feb 2012
On Air: Colossal Media Radio Interview

Following Frank’s more recent appearance I came across this radio interview with Colossal Media which I missed in February last year. The slideshow above accompanies the full story and audio download on the WNYC website. More posts from the Ghostsigns blog about Colossal Media here, it’s great to see them going from strength to strength.

15 Jan 2012
The Signpainter Movie

Over the last couple of years I’ve been following developments at the Signpainter Movie project in the USA. It is an independently produced film that will chart the history and work of America’s remaining craftsmen (due for release next year). They have been diligently cataloguing their primary research interviews on their blog as they’ve journeyed […]

16 Dec 2011
Peter Hardwicke and Tracy Emin International

Videos of Peter Hardwicke painting the letters ‘N’ and ‘A’ from the Tracy Emin International shop in Spitalfields, London. Steady hand!

10 Dec 2011
Haggai Osewe

I always enjoy a video with some signwriting, so I was chuffed to find this from Kenya, through Charlie, and thought I’d share. Alongside my discoveries in Cambodia it just goes to show that the art and craft is still alive and kicking in much of the world. It would be great to include some […]

17 Mar 2011
Roofad to God

I’ve talked about Roofads before, this is a pretty cool addition to the series, advertising this and found here.

5 Jul 2010
UP THERE

This is fantastic, the final film ‘UP THERE’ produced over the duration of Stella Artois’ ‘Ritual Project’ in New York in collaboration with Colossal Media. I’ve already talked at length about this work and my admiration for Colossal Media so I won’t cover the old ground again here but what I love about this film […]

27 Apr 2010
UP THERE from the Ritual Project

Readers of the blog may recall my discussions of the collaboration between Colossal Media and Stella Artois a.k.a. ‘The Ritual Project‘. This was all set to lead to a documentary but then everything went quiet. That is until I received an email yesterday from my contact on the production team with news that they’ve been […]

30 Mar 2010
New Painted Signs in Sussex

Through the D&AD blog I was alerted to this campaign by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership which has added hand painted signs to their TV ‘commercial’. These painted elements were done by Aroe and this one in particular is pretty big. I wonder if the currently vogue for street art might lead to more collaborations […]

2 Mar 2010
Rage Factor

This campaign now has hand painted signs to support it! The objective is to ‘steal’ the Christmas number one spot from this year’s X-Factor winner and here are the painters at work spreading the message. If you want to help with the effort then for just 29p you can do your bit to crack Cowell […]

15 Dec 2009
Charlton Signwriting

Some photos and film from a visit to Charlton to see Chris of Northern Star Creative at work on a sign for a garage. It was great to see him in action and to hear some of his stories from when he used to run a signwriting shop on the Woolwich Road. He’s writing these […]

4 Dec 2009
The Ritual Project

Stella Artois and Colossal Media are collaborating in New York to use hand painted advertising over 21 days to demonstrate the ‘ritual’ of pouring a glass of Stella. This ritual involves nine steps and by day 11 they’re on step three, mainly due to adverse weather conditions. It’s going to be a busy ten days […]

18 Nov 2009
The Cobbled Yard

I was tipped off about this new hand painted sign and got these photos some time ago. The Cobbled Yard sells all sorts of antiques so it’s quite fitting that they should use traditional signwriting to tout their wares. I have been given the contact details of the signwriter who produced this so hope to […]

3 Nov 2009
Jerry Johnson

© Sign painted and photo taken by Jerry Johnson Frank Jump over in NYC has just posted a collection of ten outstanding images from the work of experience signwriter (or “wall dog” in USA) Jerry Johnson. Some of these are genuine pieces of advertising and some, like the one pictured, are spoofs. The craftsmanship, or […]

23 Feb 2008
Brickads Live (GTA)

nicknormal has taken a great series of shots in New York of Colossal Media producing their latest creation for the new Grand Theft Auto (GTA) game. A few are below but you can see them all in a slideshow giving a real sense of the progress between 6th and 15th October. The guys are hooked […]

16 Oct 2007
NYC Brickads 2007

Oli just got back from New York where he said that there are ghost signs everywhere. However, in addition to the old signs, they are still producing modern brickads over there. This one is for Jodie Foster’s new film which has just been released in the UK. You can see, towards the bottom of the […]

30 Sep 2007
Ghost Signs Live (Dewars)

Just came across this on Erniesmallz blog. It’s the team from Colossal Media at work on a creation for Dewars It’s great to see the painting live at such close range, someone has to film this next time! They are using very fine brushes to create a really detailed brickad, I wonder what the finished […]

17 Jul 2007
Production Process

Click here for some interesting notes on the production of Ghost Signs from the USA Museum of Beer Brewing. It implies that the sign writers (or Wall Dogs in USA) used sheets of paper to create a dotted chalk outline on the wall which they could then use to guide the application of paint. I […]

27 Jun 2007
Hovis Process

Also on my visit to HAT I found this nice example of how big companies got the consistency of style across the country. It is some directions issued by Hovis as to how the back of a bread van should be painted. In a 1952 Association of National Advertisers (USA) book there is a reference […]

18 Jun 2007