Apr 14, 2010 Signage
I think the blog is taking a hand-painted bend, wouldn’t you say? I really love finding these kind of signs. Mostly, because I think they are becoming a rarity. Slowly old hand painted signs, will make way for vinyl lettering, or printed overlays of some kind. It’s nice to capture these, and think about how they were created.
This sign is especially cool, because of the still visible baselines and cap-height guides. This sign was mechanically planned with guidelines and then painted in by hand, very carefully. It’s obvious how large the stroke brush was. Looking at the smaller letters, you can get a sense of the diameter of the brushtip, especially from the thinner areas of the G.
Interesting Note: When people plan on making signs like this on their computers, they tend to forget the horizontal size for some reason. I can’t even begin to count the number of signs I’ve seen that have been squashed or compressed to fit the dimensions of a sign. Making for some seriously awkward letterforms (I’m looking at you MTA!) The sign above, the painter made perfectly condensed letterforms to make the word deliveries vertically taller, but clear and legible.