And although they look genuine enough, with textural surfaces ranging from sandy stone to rusty metal and from glittering gift paper to polished steel, they are all made from polystyrene. Graham Sweet is the designer and artist behind these and other jumbo-sized creations which began five decades ago in his front room.

“Next year is our 50th year so we will have to do something quite special,” he says. “Perhaps a very large 50. We started with the three-dimensional letters with department stores, that was my background as I used to be a window dresser, but now we are getting quite a lot of letters from printers. Their customers come to them and they want something three-dimensional and so they come to us. They are used for exhibitions and events and so on, where they want a bit of impact with letters up to two metres high although the usual height is around one and a half metres high. We then do all the decorative surfaces, but being artists, this is where this comes in.

“So, for the run up to Christmas there’s a call for coloured glitter surfaces, while at other times of the year the letters may be black or white. And we’ll play around with sand and crushed rocks for the surfaces and we can texture the polystyrene physically by grooving it to make it more interesting and attaching prints.”

Letters covered in glitter are popular at Christmas

By their nature, the letters and 3D shapes are very light so can be attached to a wall or screen or hung from the ceiling. And being light they can be carried easily onto a product stand at a trade show and transported by road without ever weighing down the suspension. Outside, the letters can be attached to stands so they don’t get blown over by the elements. Safety is a prime concern as polystyrene will burn so the objects are treated with coats of fire retardants.

If you attended The Print Show in September at the NEC, you will have seen the giant letters spelling out Park Life in the area of that name dedicated to peace and relaxation away from the hubbub of the exhibition. The letters and other three-dimensional objects are possible due to a cutting machine invented by Sweet in the early 1970s, which could shape expanded polystyrene and other plastics into almost any shape possible. Adding a fire proof coating and textural finishes has allowed an unlimited amount of creativity to firing the imaginations of clients and the team at the studios. The business involves the family with Sweet’s son Siôn and daughter Mandy, while another son David Sweet was involved in the early days as well. Those early days began five decades ago with a surprise request.

 I was asked to do a single large letter about six-foot high by the local newspaper”

“I was asked to do a single large letter about six-foot high by the local newspaper,” he recalls. “I had to take all the furniture out of the front room to make room to make it. The following week I decided to move into a studio to work, and now we have three industrial units, two of which we knocked through to make a larger one and a storage unit as well. We have to work it so the jobs go through the different parts of the building to keep things flowing.”

Graham Sweet created these letters at The Print Show

From television production companies to film studios and exhibitions to department stores the range of work is varied – quite a success for a business that started in Graham’s front room in 1969, the year man first stood on the moon.

Do you remember the first moon landings? Email your thoughts of what Graham Sweet’s 50th anniversary three-dimensional creation could be to harry@linkpublishing.co.uk or call me on Tel: 0117 9805 040 – or follow me on Twitter and join in the debate.

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