Shop fascia signs produced in South West London for a repeat client, who were having a rebranding. A sign writer is the ideal profession for this, as the sign writer has the skill level to work with paint & gold leaf. Having knowledge of typeography & design assists when sizing the branding & placement. A sign writer is able to offer design as well as impliment branding already designed by a design team. This was a branding already created by the clients brand team & was to be produced on their freshly repainted store front.

 

This premises in Clapham required both painted lettering & gold leaf. Their previous branding was a chunky white lettering in lower case on a purple painted shop front. the refreshed branding looks far fresher, with all upper case san serif type in plum & gold leaf on a dove grey shop front.

 

.

.

 

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

 

The clients had the branding in place to a degree by having it implimented on their awning, but the awning was to change colour & the branding to become the shop fascia signs.

To produce the signwriting in the ideal sizing a measurement of the fascia is required. Then the vertical & horizontal centres are measured. Lettering is then sized accordingly, made into a paper template, which is taken to site, placed in the ideal postion using the centre guides & then reliefed to the fascia panel.

 

 

.

.

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

 

 

 

The shop fascia signs is then started by producing the main section of the branding first, which was to be painted in a plum colour. This was only requiring one coat of paint if given enough coverage. The key to that is creating good consistant flow of paint using specialist sign writing brushes, which allow for producing nice wide straight lines.

 

 

.

.

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

 

The sign writing of the purple/plum lettering completed, the next stage is producing the sub text in gold leaf. To produce this smaller specialist brushes are used & a painted application of oil gilding ‘size’ is produced by hand. This is given time to become almost dry to just a low tack and then the leaf is applied over the painted letters. 

 

.

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

 

The gilding ‘size’ (glue) is mixed with paint to firstly be able to see it when painting, as its clear, but also adds a nice undercoat for the gold to just make it stand out more. The gold leaf is quite thin & fragile so the painted undercoat with the size helps being more opaque. Once the gold leaf has been laid, its allowed to fully dry. Then the excess gold is ‘burnished’ off with a soft brush or wet cloth. This also tends to remove any of the excess reliefed ‘pounce’ powder. 

 

 

.

.

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

The completed shop fascia signs in paint & gold leaf. The day it was produced was a very bright sunny day, which cast deep shadows from the lighting above the fascia. Its much better when the sun isn’t quite so bright.

 

.

.

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

Hand Painted Traditional & Contemporary Sign writing in London

Sign writer: Traditional Signs of London

info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk