House name and numbers hand painted produced on period residential properties by Traditional Signs of London.
A client with property dating back to the 15th century requested to have a house name for their premises, which was a staggered terrace cottages. One of the properties was along the pathside, whilst the other adjoining premises was set back with a small front garden.
When the intial enquiry came through with an image of the property, the entrance appeared quite grand due to its elaborate door frame & lintle. It was suprising to discover that in actual fact the door and entrance was very small requiring a need to duck your head to enter the doors! This is typical of properties from the 15th & 16th Centuries so my inital thoughts on a Georgian or Victorian premises were a little off.
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The measurements of the door lintles were given by the client. This allowed for artwork to be produced prior to being on site, but also allowed to show a digital visual of how the lettering would look on the premises. When sketching out on site you aren’t really able to do this with acuracy. Its just preferred by Traditional Signs of London to provide this, so both parties are in agreement of typeface, sizing & placement prior to work commencing.
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The house name sign writing is then started. Its not essential to which direction to write, so left handers tend to paint from right to left & right handers from left to right. As long as each letter is created with neat crafted brush strokes with a specialist brush and with a good flow off the brush with paint. Its not one stroke lettering when creating a Trajan Roman typeface which have such defined neat serifs.
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It is important when painting period properties to ensure the most suitable colours are chosen for the sign writing. It may be that the client wishes for white & then its down to the specialist to produce in the correct shade of colour to keep the signwriting sympathetic to the age of the property. In this intance a shade of off white is used.
Firstly brilliant white is far to ‘zingy’ for a period property but also old paint that had lead in it would’ve covered better & been opaque in one covering, so to replicate that other dashes of colour are mixed into the paint.
It requires to have a hue of yellowing which is what the paint would do over time, so needs to replicate that.
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The paint is allowed to dry but not at the point of curing, although thats more likely in summer, which this project was produced in. Its not essential either way but just assists in cleaning off the marking out of stabilo pencil and chalk without affecting the lettering. Its a case of just being careful as smudging would be a unnecessary delay in rectifying.
The clients with this project were impressed & appreciated the results of the ouse name sign writing being as neatly produced as possible and the uneven and wonky nature of the property taken into account and overcome. Since the project was produced, the clients have completed a full restoration of the whole property and now have it listed as a serviced accomodation for short satys, for others to enjoy when visiting London and such a historic property and surrounding area of Enfield.
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Hand Painted Traditional & Contemporary Sign writing in London
Sign writer: Traditional Signs of London
info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk