Back in May, Marco Bazelmans contacted me about a project he was working on as part of his communication design studies in Aachen, Germany. The brief was to create a guide of some sort, and he had selected signwriting as his theme. In particular, he had honed in on the idea of portraying signwriting, both …
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 …
The Lewis & Skinner archive is a collection of materials relating to the work of a Melbourne signwriting company from the first half of the last century. These were fortuitously discovered by Dr Stefan Schutt last year and he has since been working to archive them. The result is this fabulous online display which includes …
Lewis & Skinner Exhibit Featuring Ghostsigns and Live Signwriting Read More »
The Sign Painter Movie is now on tour with dates booked in until November, including Scotland and New Zealand for those outside the film’s USA base. I was treated to a preview screening and also got my hands on the book that accompanies the film. This was immensely exciting following my tracking of the project …
Sign Painters: The movie, the book and the resurgence Read More »
After finding this fantastic collection of Pittsburgh ghostsigns on the Steeltown Anthem blog [Link since expired] I dug a little deeper and came across another great set of photos. These, including my favourite above, celebrate the hand-painted murals and signs of Anthony Purcell. He also has his own website and this is the Steeltown Anthem home …
In 2009 the Colorado Gambler published an article by Cathleen Norman called ‘Walldogs, Ghost Signs and Slappy Hooper’. It packs a surprisingly large quantity of material about the history of painting signs on walls in the USA into a very short piece. However, the opening sentence of the main body might be one for the …
Here are some sample pages from my forthcoming book, ‘Hand Painted Signs of Kratie’. It is a study of the hand painted form in a small provincial capital in North East Cambodia, currently my home. (Read more blog posts about hand painted signs in Cambodia.) The book is set to be about 100 pages long …
Sample pages from ‘Hand Painted Signs of Kratie’ book Read More »
Walldog is the nickname given to those that once roamed the USA painting signs and slogans on brick walls, roadside barns and any other surface capable of providing a canvass for their advertising art. The International Walldog Mural & Sign Art Museum is a celebration of their work, located in Pontiac, Illinois, The city also houses a …
The International Walldog Mural & Sign Art Museum Read More »
Also, forthcoming, are the Signpainter Movie and another called Faded Paint. I really enjoy these films and the things I learn from them. They evidence pockets of activity around the world and how the craft is indeed being ‘kept’ by these protagonists. Keep it up! [Thanks to Traditional Sign Maker Magazine for the link.]
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 …