Creative workbench scene with two hands applying gold leaf to yellow lettering on a blue sign board.
New at bl.ag online, ‘Brendan Mooney: Memories of a Signwriter’, with a charming short biopic about this retired signwriter from Birr, County Offaly, Ireland.
https://bl.ag/brendan-mooney-memories-of-a-signwriter/
#SignPainting #Signwriting #SignPainters #Signwriters #Birr #Offaly #ShortFilms
People painting lettering and signage directly onto large windows. To the left is someone working on a large newspaper masthead, while to the left they are painting "Amsterdam Letterheads".
I am helping the organisers of this year's Amsterdam Letterheads: “Sea Level” with their email updates.
If you'd like to receive these, then the dedicated event newsletter/mailing list can be joined via this link?
https://bl.ag/#/portal/account/newsletters […]
[Original post on typo.social]
Mural with block and shade lettering for 'Me Aul Flower' set within an array of pale pink flowers.
New at bl.ag online, 'Chain Letter: Meghan McDermott', with the story of how Vanessa Power's Dublin mural guided Meghan towards her chosen career of sign painting.
https://bl.ag/chain-letter-meghan-mcdermott/
PS. This is the eighth 'Chain Letter' in the series: […]
[Original post on typo.social]
Graphic of a spread from a book with a column of text on the right and a black and white landscape image sitting across the fold. The image shows a school/workshop setting with multiple people painting large signs.
Goodness gracious me, it's actually a real book, with an introductory essay from the wonderful Morgane Côme.
This one from @letterformarchive looks spectacular and I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ […]
[Original post on typo.social]
As BLAG 08 goes to print I've noted work, articles, and projects from 17 countries in total: Argentina; Australia; Belgium; Brazil; Canada; France; Germany; Hong Kong; Kenya; Ireland; Italy; Mexico; South Korea; Spain; Thailand; UK; USA.
The international nature of our adventures in sign […]
Hand-painted paper sign headlined "Clients, Pick Two". Below this is a Venn diagram in red, blue, and yellow, with the main circles labelled "Fast", "Cheap", and "Good". Where fast and good overlap it says "Expensive"; where fast and cheap overlap it says "Poor Quality"; where good and cheap overlap it says "Takes Time"; and where all three overlap in the centre it says "Dream On".
I've just heard from sign painter Bug Sav Art in Jamaica who has taken a big hit from Hurricane Melissa.
A friend of his has started a fundraiser as he looks to recover his business, so please donate and/or boost:
https://gofund.me/6c68243b7
Pictured is Bug's […]
[Original post on typo.social]
Archival photo of a building group with some people walking the street beside it. The foreground is dominated by a curved whitewashed wall which is adorned with hand-painted sign boards advertising film screenings.
Lovely story (in Spanish) about the Albacete sign painter José Esparcia, with a particular focus on his work for cinemas and the films they screened […]
[Original post on typo.social]
Hooded sign painter on a ladder working on a fascia sign on a busy road. The lettering is in a loose rounded cursive style, painted in black with the shadow being applied in pink.
New at bl.ag online, 'Renegade Writing: London’s Faux Fascias', where we meet This Is My Costume and learn about their decade-long initiative refashioning abandoned shops.
https://bl.ag/renegade-writing-londons-faux-fascias/
#SignPainting #Signwriting […]
[Original post on typo.social]
A wine bar and bra shop
This was in June 1993, Knockhundred Row, Midhurst, West Sussex.
Taken with a Samsung AF-Slim pearl finish.
Konica 400 asa film
Quite the sexiest camera I've ever owned and one the few I've kept.
#signwriters
Artists vs Sign Painters: an observation.
I've just worked on the edits for a forthcoming BLAG feature profiling five 'fine' artists. Each one has a functional website, whereas all too often sign painters have Instagram as their sole online presence.
Context: I'm moving to crediting websites […]
Man sat on a chair painting a large freestanding sign with Vietnamese lettering. Other signs are propped up against the wall behind this in what is a light industrial workshop setting.
"Handmade signs will make people feel close and real, and at the same time, each artist will convey their own spirit, depending on the painting technique. I think that is the reason why many people still choose to use handmade billboards instead of electronic […]
[Original post on typo.social]
I'm getting very excited about the premiere of our short film, 'When Better Letters Met Brian Walker'.
For those that we can, we hope you'll join us for an informal evening celebrating Brian's life and work as a signwriter.
Tue, 29 July
6:30pm for a 7pm start
Chats Palace, 42-44 Brooksby's […]
@letterror In my 'Celebrity Signwriters' article of a few years ago I did include some fathers of famous people like Mohammad Ali, Jerry Seinfeld, and Ronny Wood.
https://bl.ag/celebrity-signwriters-past-present/
Frank Oz' dad is new to me, but I'd love to learn more if you find anything […]
Bearded man in a white apron posing with sign painting equipment in front of a bay window that's supporting a painted sign that reads "Brian Walker, Traditional Signwriter" and gives a phone number underneath that.
I'll also be delivering a short session during Saturday's BLAG Meet: Inside Issue 06 (https://bl.ag/meet
This is'ot strictly connected to the latest issue of the magazine, but I'm using the free, online event to share details of my forthcoming Kickstarter that […]
[Original post on typo.social]
Sneak preview of a little film project I've had bubbling away in the background:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/samroberts/when...
It's going to be the fifth in the 'When Better Letters Met' series […]
![It was definitely a pivotal moment of crisis and re-evaluation. I had a sense of tremendous disappointment in what I was doing, a sense of inadequacy and failure—that the work wasn’t good, that it was one bad painting on top of another. So I destroyed all the paintings I had made. This wasn’t a conceptual thing; it was because I thought they were shit. Training to be a signwriter wasn’t about changing my direction as an artist; it just struck me as a way that I could maybe make some money. I was good with a paint brush, I love lettering and I’d done a lot of design work for posters over the years. But something happened in the process of learning [signwriting] and it was to do with the delivery of the material. Painters express themselves, whereas a signwriter wants the delivery to be invisible. The artist’s personal touch is such a big facet of modern painting, and signwriting freed me from that because it is just the paint on the thing; it doesn’t pretend to be something else. Any symbolic aspect had been emptied out. It drew me to the language of graphics, and I could go to the studio with just the idea. When I open a can of paint, I just love how it looks; I almost want to drink it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:svofu73douduxwigjewxqdvo/bafkreiaostcance3b6kw62zmrcv3toogulb2cmbsq3zobnxdijfjujecti)
It was definitely a pivotal moment of crisis and re-evaluation. I had a sense of tremendous disappointment in what I was doing, a sense of inadequacy and failure—that the work wasn’t good, that it was one bad painting on top of another. So I destroyed all the paintings I had made. This wasn’t a conceptual thing; it was because I thought they were shit. Training to be a signwriter wasn’t about changing my direction as an artist; it just struck me as a way that I could maybe make some money. I was good with a paint brush, I love lettering and I’d done a lot of design work for posters over the years. But something happened in the process of learning [signwriting] and it was to do with the delivery of the material. Painters express themselves, whereas a signwriter wants the delivery to be invisible. The artist’s personal touch is such a big facet of modern painting, and signwriting freed me from that because it is just the paint on the thing; it doesn’t pretend to be something else. Any symbolic aspect had been emptied out. It drew me to the language of graphics, and I could go to the studio with just the idea. When I open a can of paint, I just love how it looks; I almost want to drink it.
"When I open a can of paint, I just love how it looks; I almost want to drink it." — British artist Richard Wright on training to become a signwriter.
From the Art Newspaper (@theartnewspaper@bsky.social) interview here […]
[Original post on typo.social]
I got interviewed for a podcast, and you can listen from about 22 minutes here: https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-stack/653/
My segment lasts about 12 minutes and I talk about BLAG, what I'm doing with the magazine, the community that is forming around it, and the wider world of the […]
Handmade pub Guinness sign.
#guinness #pubsign #handmade #woodcraft #pub #sign #signwriters #signpainting #signwriting #signpainters #lettering #handlettering #handlettered #signhunters #traditionalsignwriting #pubsigns
More 'celebrity' sign painters: https://bl.ag/celebrity-signwriters-past-present/
#celebrity #SignPainters #signwriters
Not sure of #TBT (throwback thursday) is a thing on mastodon/the fediverse, but here's a throwback to four years ago today when I hosted the 24-hour marathon that was Lockdown Letterheads:
https://bl.ag/lockdown/
#SignPainting #SignPainters #signwriting #signwriters #lockdown #ioafs
View from the side of a woman leaning on a rest (mahl) stick and painting some lettering in yellow on a blue panel.
New at bl.ag online, ''Martre' Brings the French Connection to the Letterheads', a report from this inaugural gathering of sign painters from across France.
bl.ag/martre-brings-the-french...
#SignPainting #signwriting #SignPainters #signwriters #letterheads #fr…
Black and white archival photo of five men, seated at easels with backs to the camera, painting signs of various kinds. Beyond them are dozens of signs of all sizes, stacked up in their workshop that has a high ceiling.
Thank you to Max Leonard for sharing this one with me: 'Sign-writers at work' in Melbourne. Undated.
From the Public Record Office Victoria: prov.vic.gov.au/archive/557135F8-F822-11...
#signwriters #SignPainters #signwriting #SignPainting #Melbourne #Vict…
