Signwriter

The Vacuum Shop and George Braun

Guests on my Stoke Newington Ghostsigns Walk in early 2015 were lucky to see a bonus fading fascia en route, advertising The Vacuum Shop. This was revealed by works to the Anglo Asian restaurant, which now straddles numbers 60 and 62 Stoke Newington Church Street. Ben Selig was the proprietor of an “electrical appliances” shop […]

15 Apr 2017

John Hawkins, Steeles & Chaney Signs

This ghostsign on Stoke Newington High Street comes at about the halfway point of my walking tour through the area. It is a palimpsest which has been well researched by Sébastien Ardouin. I recently took a couple of close-up photos, one of which has added to this information about the sign. Sébastien references this old […]

25 Feb 2017

RIP: Signwriters – Gilding & Pictorial Artists

This beautiful gilded script once marked the home of Ambridge Signs. When they left the premises the sign didn’t come with them and, until last month, it provided a reminder of the area’s signwriting heritage. It was situated on this unassuming building at the end of a terrace on Southgate Road, De Beauvoir, but has now […]

21 Mar 2015

Ghostsigns of Mildura, on the Edge of the Outback

Stuart Walsh got in touch from Mildura, on the edge of the Australian Outback, following the ghostsigns feature in the Guardian. What he sent me really caught my eye and he has kindly let me share some of his photos here on the blog. Here’s a little of what he told me about the city, […]

26 Nov 2014

Larkspur Restoration by Brian the Brush

This is the second of a series of three posts on current ghostsigns restorations in the UK, following last week’s piece on the Palladium Cinema sign in Morecambe. (See this This sign for Larkspur Soft Drinks is on King Street in Drighlington, West Yorkshire. The building it is positioned on was once home to Scott’s […]

16 Jul 2014

Introducing Better Letters

In the course of my research into painted signs over the last eight years I have become increasingly aware of the brilliant work that is being done by contemporary signwriters (sign painters in the USA). This started with the early profiling of the Shop Local campaign by Bob & Roberta Smith and was swiftly followed […]

27 Feb 2014