Signs are so different in part because each of them has a little bit of the person who made it. They're like artworks displayed in a gallery. Only instead of the Met, this exhibition sprawls across our neighborhoods.
Signwriters' work is "often ephemeral and sometimes beautiful, their subjects the stuff of daily life: cars and bikes, beer and bread, groceries, sport, religion, clubs," writer Nick Gadd said.
"The urban and suburban visual landscapes were created by signwriters working quietly under the radar, coming and going with their ladders, hardly ever known to the general public."
Signwriters work on all surfaces: bricks, glass, plastic, wood, banners, fiberglass—the list goes on. The ones we see on windows are done in reverse, by painting on the inside, and taking into account the distortion caused by refraction.
However, their pieces can quickly disappear. "You can’t get too attached to ’em, they might not be there next week!" Australian signwriter Terry 'Moose' McGowan told Gadd.
In that regard, Moose and other signwriters whose works we see on this list are like Tibetan Buddhists working on sand mandalas.
Despite their meticulous efforts, both forms of expression are temporary, serving as reminders of the fleeting nature of things.
Adrian Geach, who has been a signwriter since 1980, told Bored Panda for our earlier exclusive list of clever and funny signs that "a good sign should be eye-catching, easy to understand and not too wordy with enough negative space around the text or logo, and have a good color scheme."
Adrian has been successfully involved in all areas of signage and graphics for decades, but not that long ago, he went back to his roots and now concentrates on traditional signwriting.
With the current resurgence of interest in signwriting and hand-rendered work, he utilizes his skills to offer clients a more personal, unique, environmentally friendly, and organic signage solution using old-fashioned materials and techniques.
"A sign might only be looked at for a few seconds, so it needs to leave an impression within this time frame, hence the 'less is more' approach," he said.
"There are many factors to take into account when designing a sign, but the most important thing is to make sure it doesn't get lost in its surroundings," Geach added.
A bad sign, according to him, has too much lettering, not enough space around or in between text and logos, and bad color choices. Can you spot any in the pictures?
