Ghostsigns: December 2009

22 Dec 2009

Standard Fireworks (RIP)

Destruction and demolition are no strangers to ghostsigns, as the expanding list of 'obituaries' documents. Recently news has reached me of one loss and another potentially on the horizon. These show why the work on the archive is important in preserving the last survivors of this lost art/craft form.

Photo by robo2004

First up is this one for Fieldings' General Warehousemen who seem to have had their sign paid for by Standard Fireworks. The building was completely demolished as part of a wider clearance following a raging fire in an adjacent mill. Thanks robo2004 for the original photo and the news of this sign's loss. If anyone else has any photos of this sign please do send them to me as we currently only have this small one for the archive and future reference.

Photo by Isisbridge

Next up from Isisbridge is news that property developers are plotting the destruction of this corner building in Jericho, Oxford. The building is home to two very distinctive signs that made use of the blocked out windows. These touted the tea and coffee once presumably available to buy on the premises. A campaign is afoot to save the building and the signs but don't be surprised if a full RIP appears on this site soon, although you can play your part in the campaign here [Update: Campaign closed, results here]. Thanks Isisbridge for the news, keep me posted as the story develops...

Photo by Isisbridge

20 Dec 2009

Merry Christmas from Ghostsigns

A little video treat to wish you all the best for the festive season, courtesy of the ghostsigns project.

(Inspired by Jane's card and with music from The Children of St. Philips School Cambridge.)

Merry Christmas!

15 Dec 2009

Rage Factor

This campaign now has hand painted signs to support it! The objective is to 'steal' the Christmas number one spot from this year's X-Factor winner and here are the painters at work spreading the message. If you want to help with the effort then for just 29p you can do your bit to crack Cowell and mug McElderry. There's also a Facebook group you can join.

Rage on!

12 Dec 2009

What was John Bull?

A magazine or a tyre brand? Or something else?

While working on refining the categories for the archive I came across two signs which I am now uncertain about and I need your help. These are both for brands that adopted the moniker John Bull, which I now understand is a generic character akin to Uncle Sam in America.

The first on Stockwell Road in London sits alongside a sign for the Picture Post, which is a well known magazine (picture below). For this reason and following a brief search of the web I concluded that John Bull was a magazine, and indeed it was.

The second can be found as a palimpsest alongside a Brymay sign on Quernmore Road, also in London (picture below). Having found this second sign after the one above I quickly classified it as the magazine too.

However, during a recent visit to Steele's pub in Chalk Farm, I saw an old enamal sign for a brand of tyres called John Bull. This too utilised block capital lettering and so I am now wondering if one or both of these signs might be for the tyre brand rather than the magazine. The different lettering styles used would suggest they aren't for the same brand. And, given the generic nature of John Bull, could they be for something completely different?

If you know the answer or have any leads please let me know via the comments below or send an email to ghostsigns at gmail dot com.

John Bull / Picture Post, Stockwell Road, by giagia

John Bull / Brymay, Quernmore Road, by janeslondon

11 Dec 2009

100 Contributors

100 photographers have now added their pictures to the forthcoming archive using this form. The 100th person to do so was Terry Cliss, known as casillero on Flickr, and one of his images is this one for a fantastic sign in Frome.

Contributors to date:

4 Dec 2009

Charlton Signwriting

Some photos and film from a visit to Charlton to see Chris of Northern Star Creative at work on a sign for a garage. It was great to see him in action and to hear some of his stories from when he used to run a signwriting shop on the Woolwich Road. He's writing these up and plans to publish a book soon, 'tall stories from a small shop'.

The picture above is a sign that Chris hangs up on site as an advertisement for himself. It is often passers by that provide the best new business leads. However, he told me that back in the day you also had to be wary of predatory signwriters passing by who would find you starting out on a job and attempt to undercut you with the client and steal the business. If you're more interested in getting Chris to do a job than pinching business from him then he says its best to use his mobile rather than the landline above, 07717 165 376.

Today's job was for a garage and while this particular piece isn't directly onto brickwork Chris has done that type of work and described the use of plaster placed onto the bricks in order to provide a more even surface for signwriting on. This explains why many ghostsigns are on what appears to be a flat wall when the space around is purely bricks.

When I arrived Chris was up the ladder working on the initial block letters for the MOT headline. He was using guidelines to ensure uniform height for the letters and had masked off the tops and bottoms of the M and T in order to provide the straight edge.

Here you can see the outline of the T being created before filling in. Also the masking off at the top.

Next it was over to the box of kit which holds a mixture of paints, brushes, turps and more. The paints are mixed with the turps in a small tub to thin them before application to the sign. Turps is also used to clean the brushes when finished with a particular colour. It looks like this box of kit has been around a bit and seen lots of colours mixed and applied.

Chris pulled out this other box which he was given recently. The INTENSO paints inside are from around the 1940s and each says 'Signwriters White' or whatever colour it happens to be. One of them is almost as new so Chris wants to keep it as a little piece of history.

Inside each of the boxes is the tube of signwriters paint, this time white but there was also black, blue and middle chrome. It's amazing that even after 60 years these paints can still be used.

Next it was onto one of the sub headings and some freehand italics in Chris' own style. At this point I took the opportunity to film him at work which hopefully captures some of the technique. First are a couple showing the initial shape of the letters going down.

Next is laying down the shadow.

Sadly I had to leave before I could see the whole sign finished, Chris was planning on spending the whole day doing it. Hopefully he'll get a snap that I can add at a later date.

Thanks to Chris for giving this insight into his work, I hope to meet him again soon to talk more about the equipment and techniques used and will write this up when it happens.

PS. (2nd January). Here's the final completed sign...

1 Dec 2009

Chatting with the Ritual Project

I did an interview with the New York project as it reaches its climax. Read it in full here and find out more about their work here.

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