Sign Painters PB Paperback – October 10, 2012

Love, love, love this book. My entire life I have been fascinated with hand lettered/painted signs (calligraphy, sign painting, pinstriping, etc.) The more I got into graphic design, illustration, photography the more I appreciated this art form and how it is slowing going the way of the dinosaur. These artists created some amazing designs with minimal tools in their kits. No computers or fonts just their years of experience and loads of creativity. It is always nice to see an old building with some hand painted signage on the bricks outside. The book does a wonderful job of showing examples of their work along with a few stories along the way. One thing I would have liked to have seen however is more acknowledgement and interviews with some of the veterans of the craft (think Mike Stevens)

I wasn't expecting a lot from this book but I was pleasantly surprised when I got it. The works presented in this book are really good and can be a really source of inspiration for designers and type artists.

I bought this for a family member who is one of the last true sign painters. He and the craftsmen in this book create some of the most gorgeous sign work out there-- refreshing when almost all you see nowadays are vinyl letters slapped on a sign.A very interesting read with great pictures and interviews. Not just commentary on current practices, but some explanation of why there are so few real sign painters left. Even if you aren't in the trade of sign painting or lettering, it is a good look into a unique trade that I hope never goes extinct.

My first impression as one who has lived through what most of these guys have is:I am glad someone is finally telling the story. That being said:The book is an idealistic fantasy of a simpler time and the tragedy of the lives it has taken for sign-painting's sake. Though the many sign-painters documented in the book have expressed a certain esoteric joy that only a sign man can truly understand, many seem to be of the feeling that there is a renaissance of hand-made work. Sheer fantasy except for the very most elite that can afford the shift back to hollering from using the internet as it were. What is not expressed and thus sugar-coated is that there is a bean-counter mentality to be contended with in the business community whose taste is completely in their mouths and wallets, a truth largely ignored in the book. To presume that simply for the sake of a handmade object businesses will once again flock to the door of the local sign-painter is sheer fantasy. For the work that has been largely taken away from the artisan is of the simple mom and pop variety of bench top lettering, window graphics displaying hours of operation, etc. (formerly the sign-painter's bread and butter work) No business owner would pay for a service from an artisan they could acquire for peanuts from the local speedy sign shop, hand-painted appearance notwithstanding.Without a little background dear reader one would question whether I had a right make such a bold and all encompassing statement about a book that chronicles albeit lightly, the journey of the cream of the crop sign painters, many who have been spotlighted in Sign Craft magazine through the years:As a boy I was very interested in typography (especially the beautifully executed banners at the local produce stands and meat markets) and performed some of my first sign work while in high school at age 16 while working at KFC in La Puente, California where I grew up. It was a difficult craft to break into with nothing being taught in the local schools and yes, a lot of the journeymen were very stingy with their knowledge. I had the good fortune though to work with a mentor named Art Thorpe (father of a high school friend) who worked for Rockwell North American until layoffs forced him into his garage to paint signs, which he did until his passing. It was a funny irony that Art had me practice my lettering using the guideline of the classified section of the local newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. I studied under Art in an informal apprenticeship until I was ready to venture north with my lady love and went to work first at Gaines Brothers Signs in Sunnyvale then Thomas-Swan Sign Company two years later. It was 1980 when I began working for Thomas-Swan Sign Company in San Francisco, California. I worked in the show-card office upstairs overlooking Howard Street. It was touching to me that this salient detail was mentioned in the film. (but overlooked as unimportant in the book.) It was while I worked at Gaines Bros. that the name of Mike Stevens came up. His work could still be viewed live at the local venues as he was a bay area notable for a few years. Many followers of Mike's "Mastering Layout" lived in the bay area including Terry Wells, himself the subject of a 1990's Sign Craft article. It was through Terry that I learned that less precision while still adhering to the best practices of neat craftsmanship, gives a looser and more hand-made feel to the work, making it more desirable to look upon. (His example was not taping the tops and bottoms of "straight" painted lettering.)What does this have to do with the book one might ask? It is just as viable a story as many of those accounts in the book Sign-Painters. The difference is I have read many of these accounts in the trade magazine, Sign Craft over the years. Yes, many of these guys are legends, rock stars in their own right. I guess I just expected something besides a cut and paste from the Sign Craft annals having devoted most of my life to sign-painting/ making. I thought much like the story of our craft, I would have found something where the authors might have dug a little deeper, found something more homespun.What I did find well represented in the book was the way in which technology changed our respective worlds when in the early 1980's the first vinyl-cutting machines began to appear and largely cleared the landscape of the sign-painter forever. (Alan Thomas at Swan had the good sense to place his vinyl cutting equipment far and away from the journeymen in a separate unit attached to the business, assuaging any friction from the encroaching technology.) I lived through the career erosion of the professional rug basically being pulled out from under me after I had spent the greater part of my youth studying the swing of a lettering quill, truck lettering brush and fitch for wall work, only to have someone with the investment capital for a plotter to take much of the work away, yet with (in many cases) zero knowledge in terms of layout skills; of the blood, sweat and tears that were shed in the acquisition of these skills. We watched in horror as our dreams of owning a home and earning a living at something we were very proud of and had devoted much time, erode beneath our feet. I learned the craft after it had past its zenith and no I did not read the writing on the wall. I loved the craft very much and strove to show business owners the difference and advantage of hand-painted work after going into business for myself, for about 8-9 years before caving in and acquiring pieces of equipment and becoming the very thing I detested about what the business had become; A cut and paste shadow of its formal self.I have adapted as have we all who wish to be yet a part of the craft. Today I have my own shop in Fremont, California called Signcrafterz, where I do mostly computer-generated signage. To keep my chops as a sign-painter I work as a hand-painter at the Home Depot (also mentioned in the book) where the entrepreneurial spirit still allows a place for this type of work. This will depend on what store manager is in residence and I have moved to several stores as some simply see no value in hand-lettered and painted work; this a mirror of the aforementioned business community attitude. The more I have adapted, the more I became a cog in the wheel of technology; the original hand-painted sign, especially in the bay area in California, largely looked down upon by the fast and furious tech-driven business world, as companies go into and out of business overnight, merely profit-taking, showing little sense of personal ownership.In closing I must add that there is a nice representation of hand-painted work in the book and hope; that the legacy of sign-painting will live on as schools such as Los Angeles Trade Technical College, (nice dialogue in the book), remain steadfast in teaching a fully comprehensive hand-lettering course. Bravo!

So glad someone wrote a book about the art of sign-painting. The book is well-designed and has lots of photos to accompany the bios of the sign-painters. The sign-painting biz tends to be pretty well dominated by men so it was nice to see a couple of women sign-painters featured as well. Thanks Faythe and Sam for making this book. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in hand-painting signs. There are also some great design tips in the appendix that I think would be beneficial to anyone interested in graphic design.

I had done some research in sign painting in my design courses in school. Time and time again, this book was recommended to quench my interest in the art form. The seller was super friendly and helpful, and the package came in excellent condition. Now I work with a girl whose husband is a professional sign painter; I am passing this book on as a gift now that I have finished it. I highly recommend this book! A very interesting read indeed.

I was going to return it but have not gotten around to it.

For anyone who knows the difference between smelling home baked bread in the oven and picking up a loaf at the supermarket, that is the same difference between hand painted signs and lettering we used to see on store fronts, trucks, and highway bulletins and the computer generated signs we have now. This book introduces you to a few sign painters around the country, still in business, in their sign shops. Illustrated with some beautiful examples of their work.

Bello ma pochi spunti

Tiene muchas referencias visuales y es perfecto para conocer más a fondo la tipografía. Gran fuente de inspiración.

A Great an fine Book for all Artisan in Painting.

Un libro excelente que es un testimonio de una ilustre escena artística poco conocida en el mundo de la letra.

I have been making signs mainly as a hobby for just over twenty years, I have no formal training and I am mostly self taught with both wet and vinyl signs, this book is one of the best I have ever bought, even if you can't read it has so many photographs showing style and technique that you cannot help picking up many good pointers and ideas. if you only ever purchase one book about sign making then this should be the one, if you are waiting for a sign, here it is!