Coffee shop signs hand painted by a specialist signwriter in South London. The clients had previously used my services for their first shop in Forest Hill a few years previous & were now setting up another coffee shop right next to the train station in neighbouring Catford.
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The first coffee shop signs were white lettering on a grey background but the new one was to be white on a black background. Its a family run business with the parents running the No.41 premises & the adult son running the new venture, so has a different name too.
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The design of the branding was in a Copperplate Goth letter type. The image under the wording being the tool used to filter the coffee called a ‘portafilter handle’
The design was enlarged to scale from the graphic above & turned into a paper layout, which is then used once on site to be traced onto the fascia, so the signwriting can be acurate to the design.
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A suitable signwriter brush is chosen to produce the signwriting in a few strokes as possible. Matte oil based paint is used & dries quickly allowing for all the lettering to have a 2nd coat of paint to make opaque on a dark background. The fascia surface wasn’t the smoothest & the wood grain was still visable in places. This can make the paint absorb into the wood a little or drag a little of the brush instead of flow nicely.
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The shutter box made for a slightly awkward signwriting position. Not too bad for the tops of each letter but a little more tricky the lower the down the fascia & closer to the shutter box it was.
Reaching the main word wasn’t too bad to reach & the use of a decent low tack tape was ideal for creating crisp lines for the top & bottom of the text of the subheading word. Also painting the portafilter was difficlt & had to be done with upward strokes & near on upside down to how its usually painted.
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It took a little longer than usual due to this but no real concern. Just a case of getting a good position before painting & making sure of a steady hand still despite in the awkward position. The main fascia coffee shop signs were finished off with the arced ‘The’ written above the main word & adding black dots to the portafilter image.
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Once all dry, the marking out chalk is then wiped of with a damp cloth. The clients asked is I could just add a 3a in the corner of the fascia, which was no problem & done at no added cost. It was marked out into an ideal position, drawn by hand to match the other lettering & then painted on. This was also given 2 coats of paint.
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The next stage was painting the projecting hanging sign. The constrction of the sign had been done by the clients themselves, so my job was to draw the logo/branding to the required size on paper, then trace it onto each side of the wood panel. The centre of the panel was measured & drawn in chalk to line the layout to it. This way you know the drawing is straight & centred before starting to paint. The work for this was produced laying the board flat on a table inside the premises. This isn’t the easiest way to paint them, as the panel being at head height & upright is prefered, but when thats not available, then flat on a table it is.
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Again the chalk markings were wet wiped off once each side of the panel was dry. Then once dry the clients mounted the the coffee shop sign onto its fixings.
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The final piece of work to comple the coffee shop signs was writing on the exterior wall with a directional arrow so it could be seen from the main road leading to the station. Several designs were offered in the form of visuals to the client for this but in the end they went with simplicity. Originally they wanted to incorporate a ‘coffee tulip’ which is the design the baristas make in the top of the coffee when pouring in the milk. The logo & branding was thought of with the design as it has a line either side of the word Cartel, so an arrow was broken into two lines either side of the tulip. added to this was the arching oof a word above ‘Coffee’ as the branging has ‘The’ in an arch too
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The design was again made on paper before being on site & drawn to several different sizes so the client could choose the best size to fit the wall & be the most viasble from the main road. Once chosen, it was traced to the wall ready for painting in chalk.
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Painting on the wall was far easier than the fascia as it was easier to access & as a result produced pretty quickly & also given two coats of paint to make opaque.
The sun was beating down when starting the wall but was set in shadow by the time the signwriting had 2 coats & was finished & the marking out lines wiped off.
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The completed coffee shop signs job with the the fascia, hanging sign & wall signwriting all completed. A great client who was nice & social which is always nice & helps lift everyones day.
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Traditional & Contemporary Hand Painted Sign Writing in London
Sign Writer Traditional Signs of London
info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk