Signwriter
Signwriters design, manufacture and install signs, including advertising signs for shops, businesses and public facilities as well as signs for transport systems.
Signwriting Today
Most modern signwriters design and produce signs with the assistance of computer software and a range of equipment such as large format digital printers, flat bed routers, engraving machines as well as fabricated signs that are often illuminated with LED lights. Historically, signwriters draw or painted signs by hand using a variety of paint depending on the background i.e. Enamel paint for vehicles and general signs and water based paints for short term window signs. Permanent signage for use in shopfronts can be cut by machine or hand from acrylic or metal. Signwriting businesses may offer many different processes to present the same lettering or images in different media, such as banners, metal engraving, LED or neon signs.
Signs created with large-format printers may use solvent inks, water-based inks, latex inks or ultraviolet-curable/cured inks. The latter technique the most modern, which can be printed directly onto many different substrates such as wood, metal and plastic, adhesive-backed or non-adhesive films. Adhesive-backed films are then laminated to another substrate.
Signwriting Yesterday - by John Hunter, Melbourne Australia.
In earlier times, people needing signs to advertise their businesses, goods, trades and services paid signwriters who were true artists to hand paint signs. Apprentices spent many years mastering hand and eye coordination to be able to write a wide range of alphabet styles and lettering, as well as Line and Scroll work. Signwriters often worked alone, high above street level poised on huge extension ladders with pots and brushes, producing striking advertising signs above shops and businesses they worked without the protection of modern Health & Safety Laws exposed to wind, rain, sun and bird life. They painted their own displays or executed those of major signwriting companies such as Jack Nairn and Lewis & Skinner.
Hand painted signwriting continues today but most signs are produced (as above) using large format digital printers, flat bed routers and vinyl plotters. (See: "Signwriting Today", above. Providers of the large designs on covered road transports and canvas drop covers include some of last century's large signwriting businesses. They and the "newer breed" of company have transferred this commercial art from paint to plastic.
John Hunter of Melbourne Australia continues posting an ongoing collection of photographs of old handpainted advertising signwriting (Signs Of The Times) he commenced in 1983. The earliest sign photographed is for Melbourne Coal Shipping & Engineering Coy Limited' which ceased trading in 1893 (eighteen hundred and ninety-three). All photographs show the address of the signwriting and the date it was photographed. There are two sites: http://johnhunter2008.jalbum.net and one on Flickr Be aware that copyright for the business names and products photographed remains with the registered owners.
Bars, pubs and restaurants
Signwriting for these establishments is typically elaborately painted, cast in metal or gilted, for the latter sometimes also for the menu case, this is typically done by signage machine specialists or by visual (manual) artists and/or metalworkers.