Street stall signs are always looking to stand out from others but at the same time improve & look more professional. The more professional they can look the more they public will be drawn to their stall but also the more the stall appears to have a better food hygene level, which when working on the street with a temporary stall is a concern to a lot of the public.

The clients had this idea in mind. They chose a relative who runs a studio for creating art but is a pecialist in fabrication in both wood & metal. So he was ideal for creating a smarter improved & sturdy food stall with static panels.

The stall panels created were made with slats of wood & cut to lengths. A design was then taped masked & painted onto the larger panel, with the smaller panel (the fascia) painted all in one colour.

The panel covering the front of the stall was seperated into 2 pieces. The left side was pre-prepared with blue paint, the other having the tape masked design on it. It was the left panel which required the signwriting. The signs being of a quite small size given the size of the panel but this was keeping to the design given by the clients.

The letter style given was to look like a stencil which ironically would be difficult to stencil on the surface due to the grooves, which was why some street stall signs require hand painting.

The signwriting is produced using a specilist brush with the ideal made hairs & shape bristles to get the lettering as precise as possible.

The wording was spaced out so it was even & consistant. This is important when producing any sign not just street stall signs as it helps in the legibility & the overall neat visual appearance of the signs.

The next section of the street stall sign to be produced was the ‘fascia’ panel. This had a letter style ‘font’ already chosen by the clients. The lettering was measured into the correct position before being chalk lined onto the panel. The lettering then hand painted with a specialist brush to give the sharpest edges to each letter.

The fascia lettering required 2 coats to make fully opaque on the dark coloured background. This is time consuming but gives the client not just a better looking sign but is also more durable, so worth the added time & cost in the long run rather than have a hand painted sign with brush strokes noticable.

With the main company name written with 2 coats the next section to be produced was the logo, which sat on the far side of the fascia panel.  This 2 required 2 coats of paint & had thinner lines but had to be just as consistant & neat despite the grooved wood.

The only way to produce it well is to take time & make sure the brush is flowing the paint well and to have a steady hand. With the wood being ridged any taping of the lines would’ve led to paint bleeding into the grain.

 With the fascia & stall front panel completed it was onto the last stage which was a computer designed panel with slats of wood to have a font type woding & chalkboard painted panels inbetween for the menu & other info to be added

There was to be a pair of these produced. The wood was supplied by the clients, but with the wording needing to be so precise & on a small scale the only way to produce these neatly but quickly was to use a paint mask. It was asked that the slats be well varnished beforehand to make the surface of the slats as smooth as possible. This would prevent any paint bleeds.

Unfortunately they weren’t as smooth & well covered as woul’ve been liked. This did lead to paint bleeding, but rather than wipe clean (as there was only 1 paint mask per slat & they can’t be re-used) it was a case of scalpel blade the bleeds until they aren’t so obvious. This was another time consuming process. It was unplanned too. I could’ve left them for the clients to do, but wanted to make sure the scraping of the bleeds was done well without any of the wood scraped off.

This completed the work & the client was really happy with the new look Street Stall signs which were produced as precisely as possible to the original drawings.

A far more professional look, yet still using the same gazebo to work under. It makes stuch a difference to a food stall. Personally I feel apperance is important & if it looks amateur & cheap then you feel the product will be too. It often hard to get this across to retailers not just street stall vendors.

Hand Painted Traditional & Contemporary Sign writing in London

Sign writer: Traditional Signs of London

info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk