Barber Wars!

Paula has been cutting my hair for quite a while now. Recently she moved around the corner and opened up her own barber shop – good for her, I say – and so I followed her to the new premises.

The old Barbers have always had a sign on the pavement by the bank, sending customers up the quieter St Johns Street. Paula now has her sign defiantly sending customers in the opposite direction. Just in case anyone gets a headache deciding where to go, Vicky’s Cafe is touting for business too. Go and have a cup of tea while you think about it!

Cardiff Station Signs

Lovely tiled signs on the Cardiff Central Station. Look at the way they curved the tiles around the corner! And the spacing on the Cardiff sign works beautifully, even though each letter is on its own tile. The typeface has an Eric Gill feel to it – a bit Joanna semi bold. Nice to know it hasn’t been demolished in the Cardiff City clean up.

Bling My Coach

Please vote for the Pink Car Rally coach to win the bling my coach competition by voting for them here
The Pink Car Rally is in aid of a fledgling children’s charity, called the Little Princess Trust, which provides children who have lost their hair (primarily through cancer treatments) with ‘real hair’ wigs. If we win this competition, we can take 49 pink passengers on the coach and if each one raised an average of £50 Sponsorship, we could raise in the region of £2500 for the charity!! How fantastic would that be? It means that the charity could provide wigs for 8 more children!! We NEED to win!! Please help us…..

Please look at the short film, which is introduced by Gail Porter, on the Little Princess Trust’s website (www.littleprincesses.org.uk) It tells the story of how the charity helped Melissa….

Sold

Sold Bundle of wood - Forest of Dean

I came across this pile of oak, while walking with my family through the woods, up the road, here in the Forest of Dean.

I was drawn to it not just by the bright fluorescence of the writing but also the quality of the writing too. On such an unfriendly, curved surface the letters are beautifully spaced and proportioned. Even more impressive is that they have been made freehand with an aerosol. The O, in particular, is a triumph!

Well done then man (or woman!)

Ancient Greek Design

Pot from Mycenae

We visited Mycenae while on holiday in Greece. The views were stunning, the size of it all was awesome, but what I enjoyed most was the museum and their collection of pots.

The designs of the Mycenae period are quite sublime and I think we can learn a lot from the works of those masters. Their patterns are simple and beautiful, probably refined and refined and passed down from father to son over a long period. We only get to see what is left. How much wonderful stuff must there have been at the time.

My poor, long-suffering wife and children obviously wanted to pop into the museum, look at the stuff and move on. I wanted to stay all day and draw the patterns. Taking photos or buying postcards is not enough. You have to trace the lines yourself and recreate the marks to really understand them.

Many of the designs are determined by the brush and the way the brush works. You really need a brush to recreate the style. We use pens so much these days, because they are so convenient. What a hassle to get a brush out to draw! I must have a go with a brush myself and see what I come up with.

Many of the designs would make lovely logos today. I wonder what the Mycenaen designers would have made of computers and bézier curve drawing. I’m sure they would have loved it. The simple shapes are very similar. So often I looked at a pot and thought how modern it seemed, as if the design had been drawn on Illustrator just the day before. Plus ça change…

Signs of The Times

Handwritten Chalkboard from Borough Market and memorial stone inscription from Southwark Cathedral

My eye was taken by these two examples of lettering over the weekend, while wandering around Southwark Cathedral and the nearby Borough Market. The market lettering is designed to look quick and cheerful, to be rubbed out at the end of the day and replaced with tomorrow’s new bargains. Except that Borogh market isn’t like that. What’s there today is likely to be there tomorrow, not like it was in the old days, people bringing their wares to sell. The stalls are really shops made to look like market stalls.

This sign is not likely to be written by anyone in the shop. It shows a well practised hand writing a lovely,, clear flowing script. It is drawn with a chalk pen, that dries waterproof and dust free. It is designed to last. I only found one person advertising this craft and they are in Australia. There must be a way of describing the service I’ve not thought of.

The memorial stone was designed to last for ever. It is shallowly engraved and filled with paint. The longer the inscription survives the harder it is to read. Words and meanings change, but we are still able to appreciate the beautiful letter forms. I love the superscripts. Look at the difference between the 5th and the 25th. The latter is in capitals and has been flowed together as a logotype. Why should, “ye” have the e as a superscript?

Half way down you will see a different style capital “A”. Some of the ‘s’ have swashes and flourishes. It looks like it is painted with a brush. Chiselled letters would look different, but there is definitely chiselling under the paint work. I like it.

Signwriting

Some of my readers will know about my book, Alpabetty, Alpha Betty (Starters) about a girl who wants to be a signwriter. I wrote this because I was a signwriter myself, a long, long time ago.

I recently came across our local signwriter, Lee, working on the Angel pub in Coleford. He says there’s not enough full-time work for traditional signwriters. Everyone has computer made signs now. The plot of Alpha Betty has come true. All except for the happy ending. Lee says he dreams of painting boats on a sandy Greek shore!

So nice to see a real craftsman at work.