Window signs and a shop front fascia board hand painted & gold leaf gilding produced in Hampstead for a client who restore & preserve antique furniture.
The clients had contracted the services of a capentry firm to produce the fascia boards & frame, so these were collected from them in Honor Oak & prepared by myself at the studio. This meant an oil based paint primer, undercoat & then top coat to give a nice durable & smooth finish. The colour used being colour matched from the clients requested choice.
The boards were being prepared & had the sign writing produced away from the shop as they had discovered asbestos once they removed the previous shop’s signs. This meant they had to call in some asbestos removal specialists.
The main problem with this being, that they only booked them in a week prior to the shop opening soiree evening & also booked myself in to complete all the signs, both the shop front & also the window signs.
The sign writing was produced after a layout design for the shop was agreed to, but several mock ups were needed for the clients to be happy with the finished design.
The shop front had the wording in another chosen colour match choice by the clients & produced in oil based enamel for durability & a better finish.
It was suggested that the branding (their existing design) had a drop shadow colour just to make it notice a little more. Also that the street address & established date be added at either end of the fascia to balance it out but to give more of a completed look.
The window signs were marked out & then the size was hand painted on to the window pane. The gold leaf was then carefully applied on top of the signwriting & allowed to dry.
The asbestos removal at this stage wasn’t too much of an issue just a slight delay here & there. when gold leaf gilding window signs its pretty vtal that there is a light source from the outside shining in through the window to be able to see what you are doing.
The excess gold leaf was burnished off once dry & a varnish was painted over the letters to protect them from any cleaning of the window.
The royal warrants were added to the window signs by hand painting all the outlines & using a paint mask for the lettering as they were on such a small scale. These were altered at the last minute by the clients who changed their minds on size & position of them as well as having them in just gold leaf & not in colour.
This led to a confusion over the wording of the warrant & that the lettering was painted in black & not gold as requested, but was explained that trying to gold leaf lettering on that scale would’ve been a near impossible task given the asbestos removal being done at the same time as well.
The sign writing on the window of the royal warrants were all hand painted on the inside & in reverse. Once the outlines are completed its allowed to dry before size is painted to the inside of the image with a sign writer brush.
Once the gold leaf was applied & allowed to dry the excess was burnished off before it was backed up with paint, that was allowed to dry & then varnished.
The back up of the window signs along with the varnish completed the job. all that was then needed was for the asbestos removal to be completed & the shop front fascia installed.
The completed shop front with the window signs gleaming brightly as you would expect from 23ct gold
The clients shop on a snowy day
Traditional & Contemporary window signs produced by sign writing in London
Sign writer
Traditional Signs of London
info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk