The Nags Head pub sign produced by Wayne Osbourne of Osbourne Signs
A community filled with passion
Despite the constant development of technology and the introduction of vinyl alternatives, the historic and traditional craft of signwriting remains very much alive and kicking. Dating back hundreds of years, hints of hand-painted signs can still be seen in the form of ghost signs across the world on the sides of buildings, telling their own stories of businesses and communities from years gone by.
Just last month a historic ghost sign on the side of a Bristol building was preserved following orders from South Gloucestershire Council. In an unusual turn of events, the council referred to the sign, which sits on the side of a building due to be turned into flats, as “an important historic feature” and ordered it to be preserved.
The sign itself was originally painted by the late Cliff Headford for Raleigh and Humber Cycles in the mid-twentieth century.
A passion for the craft
When exploring the art of signwriting, it’s near impossible not to stumble across the work of Mike Meyer. Raised in a small town of 800 in the American Midwest, Meyer was first introduced to the craft by his dad, and it was whilst watching him work that he realised this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Once this realisation had struck, nothing could stop him from achieving his goal.
Mike Meyer has been signwriting for over 30 years. Image: Mike Hardwick
“I discovered the lettering that was around me from watching guys letter trucks that would come into town and I’d go past them on my bicycle and I’d watch them. Then I got a little older and we went to the local stock car races. All the cars were hand-lettered and I’d figure out who’d lettered them. Then when I got my driver’s licence, I would skip school and go find the guys in their sign shop and tell them that I wanted to do this.”
Despite being met with negative reactions from those already working in the trade, Meyer was undeterred. “I stuck it out and when I saw them later after I got my own shop, they kind of laughed and were like ‘you didn’t listen did you?’, and I’d be like ‘no, no. I want to be like you, and I’m going to be like you.’”
I stuck it out and when I saw them later after I got my own shop, they kind of laughed and were like ‘you didn’t listen did you?’”
Meyer went on to study sign painting at a school in Minnesota as soon as he finished high school in 1979. Unfortunately the school closed in 2005 but Meyer later went on to host workshops where he could share his skills and knowledge and bring the community together.
This community of craftspeople was first officially brought together in 1975 by a group of sign shop apprentices and signwriters in the form of the Letterheads. Today, Letterheads meets take place all around the world and are a chance for signwriters to meet up, socialise, and share and teach their skills.
Meyer first came across the Letterheads in 1988 when he went to his first meet in Texas. He explains: “I was very intimidated, but they showed me how you can open up these techniques to other people and share. It was hard to do at first as a lot of the old timers didn’t want to share anything and then when you went to the Letterheads it’s like ‘wow, we have a whole network of people’”.
Meyer continues: “Once I got the Letterheads spirit in me, I thought ‘wow, this is fantastic’, and I’m still carrying it out to this day. Somebody told me early on in my first meet in ’88, he said ‘one of you out there will be the next ones to carry this on’, and we all laughed, and he said ‘I’m not kidding. It’s not about my ego or yours or anybody’s. You just have to turn around and help the next person and be humble’.
“I met that guy 30 years later and I said, ‘what you said to me in ’88, I’m living it today and I just want to thank you’, and he said ‘all I want you to do is just carry that on to someone else. Just keep it going.’”
Keep it going is exactly what Meyer did and to this day he has run over 170 classes and around travelling the world producing work and offering help and guidance, he operates a shop out of a converted church that he moved into last year. Meyer also worked with Sam Roberts of Better Letters to produce a resource book full of tips, tricks and over 40 alphabets featuring lettering produced by signwriters from around the world.
O Factoid: Sign painter Mike Meyer has hosted over 170 sign painting workshops across the world O
Meyer says the idea for the book came from feedback at his workshops. “There’s so much information that’s thrown at them in four days that they don’t have time to really write it down. Sam said ‘we need to write a book so after the workshops are over, they can use it’. I just thought, there’s no way I can do this, carting all over the world and then when I get home doing all kinds of signs. So Sam took on the role of the book writer. A lot of it was interviewing me over email and any spare time I had was answering any questions from Sam, or any time I had an idea I’d just say ‘hey Sam, I was thinking about this, this paint or this brush, we could do this, or this’.
“It’s a great combination because Sam doesn’t come from a sign painting background, he’s an advertising guy, so it was perfect. He’s just a fantastic guy, and when we do stuff, it’s just yin yin. I just say ‘whatever you want to do, I’m all for it.’ So, we went around the world, 16 different countries we’ve taught in, a lot of it was him on the internet booking everything and telling me to ‘go here, go there’. It’s fantastic.”
Paying it forward
Born and raised in Midhurst West Sussex, Wayne Osbourne first started his own signwriting business in 1993. Much like Meyer, Osbourne saw signwriters working locally and set his heart on it before he left school. “When I was leaving school, I contacted every traditional paint signwriter in the phone book for about 30 miles (and there were many more than now), but they were either buying into the new vinyl tech or retiring out of it and weren’t taking on any apprenticeships. I struggled to find any training or a way into the trade.”
After persevering, Osbourne eventually found one signwriter who took him under his wing on a friendly basis. “I haunted the poor chap. Swept the floor, made tea, and helped out where I could when he was busy and he taught me everything I know and was wonderfully supportive, and we are still very good friends,” Osbourne says.
Today, Osbourne runs a successful business and produces a range of work including painted shop fascias and sign boards, honours boards for churches, sports clubs, schools, and colleges, as well as a lot of house signs. “Those are great fun. I often think of those as little shop fascias and I get to try out different letter styles and experiment with layouts and colours on a small job, which I will often use on a bigger job in the future.” Osbourne also produces a lot of gold leaf gilding work in the form of small plaques for picture framers, sign boards, weathervanes on churches, or reverse glass gilding.
As the use of vinyl alternatives remains present, Osbourne is keen to keep the art of traditional sign painting very much alive. “Once vinyl sign-making became a cheaper thing to get into in the mid-nineties, the few remaining signwriters tended to work alone and wouldn’t need (or afford) to train anyone so it became very difficult for young people to get into the trade with good proper training.
“This leads to people selling very casual and poor amateur work which the public then begin to conceive as the standard – or the decline of the trade and skills – lost forever.”
In a bid to combat this, Osbourne began teaching one-to-one with individuals who had approached him back in the late 90’s. This in time grew into more organised classes which he says are enormously popular.
“The unique attitude of the Letterheads meets gives people a way into what was once a closed shop. Us old school signwriters love our trade and are enthusiastic about sharing with each other and teaching the next generation the right way.”
Honing the skill
Someone who has been trying their hand at signwriting, particularly in the form of Victorian photographic processes and reverse glass painting, is Patrick Ballanger. Arriving in the UK from France in 1996, Ballanger has spent the majority of his adult life here and is now based near Bath. After many years in hospitality, Ballanger works for a local artisan cheese merchant, but his spare time is spent being creative and honing his reverse glass painting and gilding techniques.
Bath-based Patrick Ballanger has been using Victorian photographic processes for around 12 years
“Entertainment doesn’t generally really work for me, I get my kicks from art, history and music. Over the years, I’ve become increasingly introverted and now favour the company of books and small groups of people where ideas are discussed, lessons are learnt and growth is made possible. It must make me sound very miserable, but in fact I can be a very jovial clown as I possess rather a spontaneous and silly sense of humour.”
Whilst not a signwriter by trade, Ballanger has been using Victorian photographic processes for around 12 years. He explains: “One of these processes is called wet plate collodion and I use it on glass plates. I am combining this process with reverse glass painting and gilding. I had the honour and privilege of taking part in Dave Smiths’ workshop which was truly amazing. This in turn led me to have a go at signwriting whilst trying to improve my brush skills.”
In doing this, Ballanger works almost exclusively on plain, textured and stained glass for both his photography and reverse painted/gilded work. This work varies from still life and portraits to silver mirror and glass passe partout, as well as small signs.
Reflecting on the sense of community amongst signwriters, Ballanger adds: “I’ve only dipped my toe in it, but it seems to me that there is a very strong sense of community among signwriters. It’s apparent in the conventions, literature and social media. People seem very keen to lend a hand (which is also found within my fellow photographer community and other craft people).
“A few years ago there was an advert for a university selling their course on the latest technology as being future proof. It made me think that what makes anything future proof is not just found in the new, it is actually found in the perpetuation of traditional skills and knowledge. For this it is crucial to preserve the art of signwriting. It is handmade and it protects us from a clinical world of digital uniformity.”
Room to be creative
James Cooper, owner of Bristol-based Dapper Signs, first started out signwriting whilst doing some casual work for a friend. “There was no menu board so I bravely volunteered to stop washing dishes and scribbled on a blackboard with Posca pens for a couple of hours instead,” Cooper explains, adding: “I got a few compliments for it, so when I got home I put some business cards together that said ‘James Cooper, Signwriter’, as though I’d been doing it for 30-odd years and then I carpet bombed Bristol’s pubs and cafes with them and very slowly work picked up from there.” That was 12 years ago, and today, Cooper’s distintive work can be seen across the city and further afield in the form of murals, shopfronts, windows, private commissions, and lots of tattoo shops – all always hand painted.
James Cooper runs Bristol-based Dapper Signs and particulary enjoys producing big window signs
Cooper says: “These places are always independent and the owners are usually artists themselves and will often give me loads of room for input and ideas. I love doing big windows, sketching it all out on the outside of the glass and painting it on the inside. Doing everything on site isn’t always possible, but when I’m able to, it’s usually quite challenging and also massively satisfying.”
Reflecting on the lack of education pathways into signwriting, Cooper adds: “Traditional signwriting has obviously been enjoying a renaissance these past few years which is great, but I suppose it might take mainstream education a little while to catch up with demand. In the meantime, Letterheads meets will have to do! Anyway, you can’t drink during a university course, can you?”
James Cooper has been signwriting for over a decade
The sense of community is something Cooper makes the most of in the day-to-day running of the business and despite the artform becoming more and more popular in recent times, he notes that there’s still only relatively few people working in the field.
“Whenever one of the myriad of potential sign problems rears its head, I have a big bunch of beautiful people on speed dial that I can ask for advice/bribe to assist me /listen to me cry,” he adds.
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